


Hard Reset

by StarlitVesper



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Dark with a happy ending, Dib is Of Legal Age (Invader Zim), Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Fresh Start, Graphic Description, Happy Ending, Hidden Feelings, Home surgery, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Murder, Other, Physical Abuse, Sad with a Happy Ending, Shameless Smut, Technically major character death, There is a really long and explicit sex scene, Trans Dib (Invader Zim), ZaDr, Zim and Dib Relationship, Zim and Dib have poor emotional intelligence, Zim is intersex, cos that's just always how i write him, cw for discussion of non con, descriptions of irken guts, dib has anger issues, enemies to lovers speedrun, gaz is a supportive sibling, gir is mostly just kinda there i guess, physical injury, redemption arc, zim and dib are of age, zim and dib romance, zim is hypersexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:42:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlitVesper/pseuds/StarlitVesper
Summary: Dib is having a shitty day, and he's about to make it Zim's problem. But when he takes it too far, he realizes that getting Zim out of the picture permanently isn't what he actually wanted. How far is he willing to go to erase his mistakes and get a fresh start with the person he's considered his nemesis for the better part of a decade?This story aims to break the enemies to lovers speedrun world record. You're welcome.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 99





	1. Everybody's Gotta Die Sometime

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS. There is technically a major character death, graphic physical violence, home surgery, and an awful lot of manipulation. Is there a happy ending? **Yes.** Is there an awful lot of very dark content here? **Also yes.**  
> ...  
> Is there an egregiously explicit sex scene that goes on for way longer than it probably should? **Um. Hi. Are you new here??**
> 
> **I should also mention that there is a happy ending to all this. Unless otherwise stated, I don't really do tragedy. I just wanted to write something kinda fucked for once.**  
> 

_Turn around your life or we'll change  
Without your consent  
Without your okay  
All my friends and all my family  
Suddenly don't understand me  
Understand I'm not the man they think I am_

[— _Chasing it Down,_ Mother Mother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-D2qXm0cw)

* * *

Dib was pretty sure that nobody could have possibly been having a worse day than he was. His latest video on the Truth Shrieker forum — and Reddit, and twitter — had received a rather frigid reception. He’d spent so long putting it together that he had to put off studying for his history exam, which he was fairly confident he could swing an acceptable “C” on without so much as glancing at the textbook. He had vastly underestimated the difficulty of the test, however, and wasn’t even halfway through with it by the time the bell rang. At lunch, he’d made an attempt at asking Keef out that had fallen flat on its face and now he was pretty sure he could never return to any of his classes. He’d gotten home as quickly as he could at the end of the school day, only to discover that his dad had cancelled the family dinner plans for the month, and the rest of the year wasn’t looking that much better.

Dib was drowning in rage, and he was about to make it someone else’s problem.

He marched past the tacky lawn ornaments, fully prepared to deck a plastic flamingo full on the beak, but the cavalcade of curious critters seemed oddly quiet today. With no physical outlet, Dib could feel his anger rising to critical levels. He briefly considered roundhouse kicking a land gnome in the interest of temporary relief, but thought better of it.

He stopped outside the magenta door and slammed his palm against it. “Open up, Zim! I know you’re in there. You can’t hide forever!!”

He could hear noise inside that sounded like the TV was turned up rather high, but then it abruptly cut out. The door swung open and before Dib could even go on the defensive, a high-pitched squeal stopped him short.

“Hi, Dib!!” GIR shrieked in a tone that made Dib momentarily go deaf.

“Uh. Hey, GIR,” Dib replied awkwardly to the little bouncing robot whose hood had nearly flopped all the way back off his face. Dib leaned brazenly through the doorway to peer around, but there was no Zim to be seen. “Where’s Zim at?” he demanded.

Well.

 _Tried_ to demand. The question had come out a fair bit more polite than he’d intended. It was hard to stay angry while dealing with GIR, and Dib hated him a little for it in that particular moment.

GIR took a long, egregiously loud sip of his Suck Monkey while Dib’s eyes narrowed.

“Park,” GIR finally offered when it was clear he’d reached the bottom of the cup.

“Great. Thanks,” Dib said curtly, turning on his heel back towards the entrance to Zim’s pathetically small yard before GIR could get the chance to disarm him further.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

Dib stopped with one foot on the walkway and looked over his shoulder. GIR looked like he was asking the question to a friend instead of the kid who had been mercilessly harassing his master for the past 6 years. It almost made Dib soften for a moment.

“Thanks but no, thanks,” he finally said, shaking his head. “I’ve got plans.”

“‘Kay, byeeeeee!” GIR yelled, shutting the door before he’d concluded.

Dib could still hear a muffled, “ _—eeeeeeeeee_!!” through the door as GIR made his way back to the couch. He started down the walkway, trying to push away all the thoughts and feelings vying for control of his brain.

While he had an almost amicable relationship with GIR on the rare occasions they encountered each other, his run-ins with Zim had become increasingly violent of late. It wasn’t just because Dib had quickly come to tower over Zim while still fighting just as hard as he had when they were the same size. It wasn’t even because Zim had become a formidable threat. If anything, Zim’s plans had grown less coherent. Less threatening. Less inspired. Zim’s heart really didn’t seem to be in it, to the point where Dib could have easily turned his back on the Irken for good, if he wanted.

But he _really_ didn’t want to get into why he was reluctant to ever do _that_.

The sun was starting to sink low in the sky after skirting the horizon for the past few hours and Dib bundled his coat around him as a chill breeze blew a rolling tsunami of leaves past his feet. He’d half expected his angry march towards the park to be counterproductive, but he was still seething. Even though Zim had long since discontinued the practice, he was one of Dib’s early detractors online and a large reason why nothing Dib posted now could ever gain any traction. It was also ultimately the reason why Dib had been booted from the Swollen Eyeball. When the person Dib kept accusing of being an alien had popped into his livestream on the topic, claiming that Dib was waging a persistent bullying campaign against him, it didn’t take long for group consensus to label Dib the villain. He’d never really regained credibility after that one. And it was directly due to Zim’s interference.

As Dib approached the park, he was a little shocked to find it empty except for Zim. He was doubly shocked to see Zim simply sitting on the swing, lazily gliding back and forth through the air like a pendulum. He didn’t look like he was in the midst of any sort of scheme. He seemed to be merely enjoying the last rays of sunlight on an autumn afternoon while lost in thought.

And even though seeing something so normal, so innocent and un-Zim-like, should have made Dib rethink what he was about to do, for some reason it just pissed him off that much more. How dare Zim just be _sitting there, enjoying himself_?? Especially when Dib was having such a dogshit day. Especially when it was _thoroughly_ undeserved!

He made a beeline across the grass, no plan in his mind, feet seeming to move of their own accord. All he knew was that he was miserable, and being miserable made him angry, and that he might have been _slightly_ less upset and conflicted if Zim had never darkened his doorstep with his wretched, repulsive presence. Before he knew it, Dib was marching through the sand, grabbing the seat from under Zim at the height of his swing, and dumping him out on the ground.

Zim shrieked and rolled, frantically trying to turn and see who had attacked him. When he saw it was Dib, he rolled his eyes and slowly got to his feet, eyes narrowed.

“Great job, Dib-Shit. Were you trying to bruise my ego, or just my ass?” Zim asked, clearly hoping for some quality banter.

Dib was in no mood for any of that, however, and swiftly decked him in the side of the face.

The blow sent Zim reeling and he would have smacked into the supports of the playscape if not for his PAK legs catching him. Dib registered the fear in Zim’s eyes a moment before it was gone, replaced with a steely glower. Zim spit blood on the ground, spattering the sand with pink, eyes never leaving Dib.

“That wasn’t fair,” he groused as he repositioned his wig. He looked Dib up and down, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “You’re supposed to at least say _something_ before you roll up and hit me in the mouth,” he continued acidly. He glared at Dib, who still had neither moved nor spoken. “What’s your problem? Did your dad threaten to put your crazy ass back in the nuthouse or something?”

Everything about the way Zim said those words — his sneer, the way he was egging Dib on with his eyes — made all of the anger Dib had been holding onto suddenly explode out of him. He launched himself straight at Zim’s throat, hands outstretched and ready to throttle him.

Zim realized his mistake a second too late and attempted to turn, only for Dib to bowl him over backwards. They crashed into the sand, spraying grains that glittered in the dying sunlight out around them like a wave. As Dib’s hands cut off his air supply, Zim flailed frantically like a dying fish, his PAK pinned in the sand beneath him, his fists landing blow after impotent blow against Dib’s head. He finally managed to tuck his legs up and kick Dib hard in the gut, winding him and causing him to let go enough that Zim could struggle free.

“ _What is the matter with you??_ ” Zim shrieked, scuttling backwards as Dib struggled to his feet, wheezing and dry-heaving. Zim’s PAK legs were out now, ready for Dib to launch a second assault. As Dib once again threw himself towards Zim, Zim’s PAK went on the defensive and pointed the sharp ends of its retractable legs towards Dib. Zim turned his head, prepared for Dib to willingly gore himself on the ends. What he wasn’t expecting was to suddenly be pulled forwards, a boot against his chest as Dib yanked hard and snapped the metal legs from his PAK.

Dib, unbalanced, fell backwards into the sand, sprawling out to avoid getting the wind knocked out of him. Momentarily free, Zim spun and sprinted in the opposite direction, hoping to flee further conflict.

But Dib was faster, quickly leaping to his feet, arcing around, and tackling Zim from the side. The ensuing spray of sand blinded both of them momentarily, but Dib ultimately got Zim on his back again, pinning him to the ground.

“What the fuck, Dib‽ What the actual fuck?!” Zim screamed as Dib — older, now, than he had been years ago, and much heavier for it — pinned his writhing body against the ground. “Say something, you freak!!”

“I hate you!!” Dib finally shouted, tears springing to his eyes.

“I didn’t do anything to you!” Zim yelled back, tone baffled, an utterly bewildered expression plastered onto his face.

“You don’t get it at all!” Dib yelled, tears still streaming down his face.

Zim gave him an incredulous look that was somewhat undermined by his current position. “Use your words, then!” he snapped, frustrated and confused.

Dib glared at Zim for a moment, but for once, Zim seemed to be genuinely attempting to understand his position. He sat back slightly, still keeping a tight grip on Zim. “You _chose_ to come here. I didn’t choose for you to show up in my class. But you did. And you were the perfect proof of everything I’ve ever known was true!! Everything I was mocked for and tossed in the psych ward over was _real_ and sitting right within my reach. I thought I was finally going to be _vindicated!!_ ”

He stopped to choke back a sob as tears splashed in Zim’s face.

“Imagine my shock when _nobody_ —” His hands tightened around Zim’s arms. “ _—nobody at all_ , believed a word of it. Even though I’ve never seen anyone who looked _more like an alien in my entire life!”_

Given the city they lived in, that was definitely saying something. He wasn’t sure if it was whatever chemical brew was bubbling away at the city cesspool or the toxic runoff from Membrane Labs, but none of the residents were winning any beauty contests. And yet …

Dib looked Zim over; his green skin spattered with a galaxy of freckles, his dusky purple irises, his antennae poking out from under the wig that was sitting askance on his head.

Dib _hated_ all of it.

He _hated_ how poor Zim’s disguise was. He _hated_ how people treated Zim more like a person than they did him.

And, most of all, he _hated_ how Zim was somehow the only person he’d ever felt a passing attraction to.

Sure, he’d tried to ask out Keef, but it was mainly as a cover. A beard. An attempt to appear normal, maybe even bring his social standing up a bit. Maybe he’d even learn to find other humans attractive. Though that last one was a bit of a long shot, and Dib knew it.

It wasn’t as though wanting to fuck an alien was a new concept to Dib. He’d been wildly aware of his strange personality quirk for quite some time. What truly bothered him was the fact that it was _Zim_ , the one person he hated most in the entire Galaxy, that he had ended up secretly and shamefully beating himself off over every night.

Why did it _have to be Zim_?? Out of all the types of aliens that had to exist out there, beyond his own atmosphere … why did it have to be _this one_??

As if sensing his internal conflict, Zim reached up slowly and put his hand on Dib’s, his stoic expression betrayed only by his shaking hand. “We don’t have to keep doing this,” he said softly.

Dib looked him over suspiciously. “What D’you mean?”

Zim looked away, guarded and uncertain. “I’m … not on great terms with Irk. Haven’t been for a while, now,” he admitted, looking pained and radiating pure shame. “And if I’m being _really_ honest, fighting you has gotten old. I don’t really have anything to fight for anymore.”

Dib glared at him, mulling his words over. What would he do if it _was_ true? Could he really keep beating Zim up, knowing full well that Zim wanted no part of it? On the other hand, this was awfully convenient timing. Why couldn’t Zim have told him this earlier? Why had he waited until Dib tried to punch the daylights out of him?

“What do you think, Dib?” Zim asked, voice soft. “Can we finally call a truce?”

Dib looked at Zim’s hand, clad in knit gloves that left the tips of his fingers exposed. That may have been the only thing that really changed about Zim in the past six years. And, much like Zim’s tempting words, it was surface-level.

“I think you’re a liar,” Dib finally said.

Zim’s face fell. “I’m not lying, Dib. I—.”

“Yes, you are!” Dib shouted over him.

“I swear on my tallest —!”

Zim didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence before Dib’s hands moved from his arms to his throat and clamped down.

“ _ **Shut up!!**_ ” Dib screeched. “ _ **Shut up shut up shut up!!! Nobody ever fucking lets me talk!**_ ”

“Dib! … Please …” Zim choked from beneath him, his struggling only serving to mire him deeper in the sand as Dib’s weight pressed down on him.

“ _No_! You’re gonna _listen to me!_ ” Dib yelled, spit flying. “You know _why_? Because _you’re the reason no one else ever does!!!_ _You’re_ the one who discredited me online. Got me kicked out of the only group on the planet that actually gave a _damn_ about everything I know!”

Zim squirmed beneath him, real terror suddenly appearing in his eyes. “My PAK … Dib … stop!!!” He tried to claw at Dib’s arms, but couldn’t seem to summon the strength to break the skin.

“I’ve been miserable for _six fucking_ _years_ , Zim! I think you can be uncomfortable for _six fucking seconds_ while I lay out _exactly_ how you’ve made my life a _living hell_!” Dib could scarcely see through the tears spilling from his eyes. Luckily, Zim seemed to have finally settled down beneath him. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your _life’s work_ ripped away from you! Your leaders still believe in you, no matter _how_ incompetent you are! People don’t call you _crazy_ or send you to a _psych ward_ in bad faith or tell you that you’re _such a fuckup_ that it’s not even _worth it_ to tell you to _kill yourself_! People treat you like _you’re_ more of a human than _I am_! You couldn’t even _begin_ to understand how _shittily_ people treat me!”

His tears blinded his vision and he wiped his face on his shoulder, knocking his glasses aside and sniffling loudly. When he looked down, Zim was motionless, staring wordlessly at him through half-lidded eyes.

“Say something, _asshole_!” Dib shouted. “You’ve been _dying_ to interrupt me for the past few—”

Dib stopped short as something in the corner of his eye suddenly caught his attention. He blinked the remaining tears out of his eyes, convinced that he was imagining Zim’s PAK laying in the sand a few meters away at the end of the impact trail from when Dib had tackled him.

Panicked, he looked back down at Zim, who didn’t appear to be breathing anymore. He abruptly jumped to his feet, scrambling to roll Zim onto his back. There were holes in his tunic where his PAK usually attached, pink scar tissue standing out in stark contrast to the surrounding green skin.

“No no no no …” Dib mumbled to himself as he sprinted for the PAK. He retrieved it, turned and slid on his knees to Zim's side. He held the PAK to Zim’s spine, watching until the snakelike silver micro cables slithered their way back into Zim’s skin. Dib let go and sat back. As he expected, the PAK lit up, then sent a jolt of electricity through Zim’s body, making his limbs twitch violently for several agonizing second. As soon as it was over, his body lay still.

Dib leaned over, but Zim’s eyes were still glassy and unseeing. He didn’t even need to check for a pulse or a breath. A prickly sense of anxiety rolled over his skin, making him feel at once cold and flushed as the reality of the situation finally began to settle in.

“No … no no no no! _Please_!” Dib begged, suddenly choked up. “It was a mistake … just a stupid mistake!! I just wanted to scare him … I didn’t mean to _kill him_!!”

He jumped back as the shrill whine of a capacitor charging sounded from Zim’s PAK and the electricity discharged again, making Zim twitch as if he was in the throes of a seizure. Dib clung to the hope that, this time, Zim would spring to life. But there was no light in his eyes as the shock dissipated, leaving his body limp once again, cheek resting on the cold sand.

Dib watched as Zim’s PAK tried over and over to restart Zim’s heart, even as tears blurred his vision and sobs shook his body. When a minute passed without another attempt at reviving the deathly still alien at his feet, Dib leaned forward and put a finger to Zim’s neck. Even though he knew. The sputtering flame of hope dictated that he at least _try_.

There was no pulse. No sign of breathing. Zim’s skin was rapidly growing cool in the chilly air of what would otherwise have been a perfect fall evening.

Dib's mind was blank, thoughts still as the eye of a hurricane. He grasped desperately at the things he knew; the cold, hard facts of his current predicament.

Zim was dead.

And Dib was responsible for it.

This was not the victory he had always dreamed it would be. Under all those layers of hate and resentment, there was a different sort of obsession. An infatuation that had long been brewing. And while it had yet to fully blossom into something that could actually be called _love_ , it wouldn’t be quelled.

Ironically, as the grim reality fully settled over Dib, that feeling that _just wouldn't die_ — no matter how much he tried to quash it — finally burst out into the fading sunlight.

“I’m gonna fix this,” Dib whispered as he straightened Zim’s wig l on his head, hand lingering just slightly longer than necessary. “I promise. I’m going to make this right.”

He scooped Zim up but quickly realized that carrying him bridal-style was probably the worst possible option. Not only did it look highly suspect to be carrying someone who appeared, in the best case, to be entirely unconscious, it was also difficult to carry dead weight no matter how light Zim might be. Dib set him back down, mind racing. The sun had sunk below the horizon so, as luck would have it, he would be walking home in the dark. But the longer he sat in the park, standing over someone who clearly needed some sort of emergency intervention, the higher his chance of being stumbled upon became.

“Okay, just think, Dib,” he muttered to himself. “You just have to get him home. It’s only fifteen minutes away. Maybe you can just … tie him to you?”

The thought was unsettlingly macabre, but it was going to have to do. Maybe he could just pretend Zim was sleeping? After all, Zim’s PAK was gently glowing, the brightness going up and down as if it were breathing.

He took off his hoodie and knelt beside Zim’s body, carefully reaching down under his arms to lift him up. He used the body of his hoodie to support Zim’s weight and pin his legs to Dib’s flanks, tying the arms tightly at his back. He lifted Zim’s arms over his shoulders and stood up slowly, hugging the Irken to his body and making sure he didn’t slide downwards before setting off for home.

His brain, which had been buzzing just moments before, suddenly felt as still and placid as a frozen pond. Thoughts drifted, unmoored, but he felt nothing for much of the walk home. He glided like a ghost down quiet streets, barely even flinching as he was caught in the headlights of passing cars. Who would possibly confront him, anyways? It wasn’t as though strangers were in the habit of shaking down anyone who looked even a bit odd at a glance. There was no blood on either of them. Zim wasn’t kicking up a fuss. All Dib was doing was walking at a leisurely pace, carrying someone who, for whatever reason, couldn’t walk for themself. It was hardly a crime.

It briefly crossed Dib’s mind that Zim smelled rather nice. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information. He also realized that he hadn’t ever had another person this close in recent memory. It wasn’t bad. At least, as long as he kept some cognitive dissonance between the feeling of holding someone and the realization that the someone he was holding was very much dead.

Though hopefully not for much longer.

“I’m going to fix everything, Zim,” Dib murmured as he rounded the corner to his block. “Bring you back and do everything right this time.”

He quieted as he arrived at his house, looking nervously at the windows. He slowly relaxed when he made his way up the walkway towards the front door without seeing a single light on. He opened the door slowly and slipped inside.

It was dark, but all he had to do was feel his way around until he found the door to the basement, where he’d stashed a bunch of stolen Membrane Labs equipment in case he ever got to make good on his autopsy threat. Luckily for Dib, his night vision was adept and besides, he knew the layout of his house like the back of his —

“Fuck!!”

Something at roughly knee-height had gotten in his way, and he pitched forwards. He managed to catch himself on the ottoman, but it meant letting go of Zim, who flopped heavily to the floor while Dib swore and rubbed his shin.

Footsteps above him and the sound of a door opening made him abruptly freeze.

“Dib? Is that you?” Gaz’s voice asked from upstairs.

“Yeah, sorry, I just tripped!” Dib replied hurriedly, trying to gather Zim back up.

“Why the hell are you wandering around in the dark?” Gaz asked as she made her way down the steps. “Just turn on some—”

“No!! Don’t!!”

“—lights, dumbass.”

The entire living room was suddenly ablaze with more than enough light for Dib to watch his sister’s face go from irritated to horrified in the space of half a second. Dib met her gaze, feeling helpless.

“Tell me he’s just unconscious,” she said from the landing, tone unreadable.

“Gaz … let’s just be calm about this,” Dib begged.

His sister looked back and forth between his terrified eyes and Zim’s clearly lifeless body.

“Oh my god … what did you do?” she whispered.

“It wasn’t … I didn’t … I just needed him to _shut up_!” Dib babbled, eyes unfocused. “I didn’t know if knocked his PAK off! I didn’t think I’d strangle him to death!!”

“What the hell were you thinking‽‽” Gaz suddenly exploded, leaping down the remaining steps and striding over to take Zim from him. She put her arms under Zim’s and attempted to pick him up, giving Dib a thoroughly disgusted look when she realized he’d tied Zim to him with his hoodie. “Did he even _do anything_ to you this time??”

“I … _No_ , but …” Dib sputtered, readjusting the arms of the hoodie in front of him and fumbling with the knot.

“How many time have I told you to just fucking leave him alone??” Gaz asked as she slapped his hands away and started untying the knot herself.

“He’s the reason my life is hell, Gaz!”

She glanced up only long enough to give him a look that could shatter diamonds. “ _You’re_ the reason your life is hell, you fucking maniac!!” she hissed.

Dib felt anger building in his chest again. “ _He’s_ the one who—”

He was stunned into silence when Gaz slapped him across the face, knocking his glasses to the floor. He sat quietly, cheek stinging, as she picked up Zim’s limp frame and held him almost protectively.

“He _never_ would have had an issue with you if you’d just _fucking left him alone_!” she fumed, well beyond irate with Dib’s stupidity. “He wasn’t ever going to be successful at taking over _the school_ , much less the _entire goddamned planet_. Or have you not figured out yet that he was marooned here for being an incompetent dumbass?”

Dib looked away. He’d been wondering, for a while now, if Zim’s “mission” was less than official. But admitting that would have invalidated all their years of fighting. It would have meant that all Dib’s hard-fought victories didn’t have to be so hard-fought. That a more competent investigator could have easily subdued the alien menace in a matter of minutes. Really, it was part of the same sunk-cost fallacy that kept him from ever attempting to be friends — much less anything deeper than friends — with Zim at all.

“But you’ve finally achieved your goal,” Gaz continued, ire dripping off her words. “You’ve stopped him. _The planet is saved!!_ Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Dib closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “I … haven’t been fighting for that in a long time.”

“So why fight him at all?” Gaz asked. But something in her voice told him she wasn’t so much demanding an answer as probing for confirmation of something she already knew.

Dib didn’t even need to guess at what was going through her head. She had always known him too well, and as much as she made a big show of not caring what Dib or Zim got up to, she’d undoubtedly noticed when their dynamic shifted.

“I think you already know,” he mumbled, radiating shame.

“I’d still like to hear you say it,” Gaz said. When Dib didn’t immediately reply, she sighed and turned away. “Fine. I guess I’ll just go bury him under the garden—”

“Wait!” Dib shouted, jumping to his feet.

Gaz looked over her shoulder expectantly.

“I … I’m … attracted to him, I guess. Okay?” Dib muttered, flustered and a little horrified at what he was about to admit. “But I also hate him for all of the shit he put me through. If he’d never have shown up at all, there might be at least one person in school who didn’t outwardly despise me. And I’m not _entirely_ convinced he didn’t do something to me to _make me attracted to him!_ ”

It would be just like Zim to go for the long con. Maybe he was waiting for prom next semester, hoping to humiliate Dib one last time before the public education system finally released them into the wild.

“Do you even hear yourself?” Gaz asked, contempt written all over her face. “Do you _actually believe_ the lies you tell yourself? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

Dib sunk back to the floor, head in his hands. “I just don’t understand why it had to be _him!_ Why I can’t just be normal …”

“Believe me, I’ve asked myself that about you daily since I was born,” Gaz said, sounding abruptly very tired. “I always had a bad feeling I’d end up having to cover up a murder for you. Or take you out behind the shed and shoot you before the feds picked you up for being a serial killer.” She looked down at Zim, eyebrows knitted together. “At least with this situation, there are limited people who will even notice he’s missing, much less care.”

“I care …” Dib whispered.

“Probably shouldn’t have killed him, then,” Gaz snapped.

“I know! I know … I fucked up really badly. But … I’m going to make things right.” He stood up shakily and reached out to take Zim from his sister’s arms.

Gaz eyed him warily, but ultimately allowed him to take Zim back.

“Are you even sure you can even revive him?” Gaz asked skeptically as she followed on Dib’s heels.

“I have no earthly fucking idea, but I have to try,” Dib said resolutely.

“Please tell me you didn’t buy another necromancy book off eBay,” Gaz said nervously as she opened the basement door for him. “We don’t need another _Pet Semetary_ situation. Dad was super pissed off after the last time.”

“At least we finally figured out what happened to our puppy,” Dib said with an uneven shrug. “But nah, this time we’re using … _real science_.”

He flipped the light switch and, with a click and a hum, the basement filled with the sickly clinical glow of a dozen fluorescent lights. Dib felt the steps with his foot, judging the distance before carefully descending the concrete stairs into the brightly lit basement. It had ended up as storage for a variety of overstock, defective, and prototype Membrane Labs equipment over the years, and as Dib set Zim gently down on his makeshift autopsy table, he desperately hoped that something of use was hiding on the dusty shelves.

Zim looked almost like he was sleeping and as Dib carefully reached down to remove his wig, he was almost worried that Zim would snap awake. But all that happened was that Zim’s antennae unfurled and lay limply on the table. Up close under the bright lights, Dib could see that Zim’s antennae were covered in fine, downy hairs. He suddenly realized that he’d never noticed a litany of tiny details about Zim in all their years of only being up close and personal when exchanging blows. He slowly reached out a finger towards the top of Zim’s head.

“Dib … you need help,” Gaz piped up softly as she watched him.

Dub jumped and retracted his hand. “Yeah, would you mind rummaging around for that pacemaker prototype Dad was working on earlier this year?” he asked as he got up. “I’m gonna see if there’s a pair of scissors around. I need to get that shirt off him.”

“I mean like _psychological help_ ,” Gaz said forcefully as Dib searched the shelves, pretending they were having anything approximating a normal conversation. “I’m going to give you a hand with this, but I need you to know that this whole situation? It’s fucked. Unspeakably twisted and fucked. I mean … this time it was Zim. But what if you’d done this to a human??”

“I wouldn’t have,” Dib said coolly as he finally located the scissors he was looking for on one of the shelves. He found Gaz’s assertion laughable. He’d actively saved his idiot classmates from danger more than once, despite the fact that not one of them deserved to skirt death. He’d held lives in his hands and proven he was merciful. If that wasn’t the mark of a good person, then what was?

“So you’ve never thought about murdering someone?” Gaz asked skeptically as she watched Dib carefully snip through Zim’s tunic.

Dib shrugged noncommittally. “Lots of people think about murdering other people. Especially when those people have been hurt.”

“Yeah, and those people are also usually in therapy for it because it’s not a healthy response to have.”

Dib turned to face her, clearly frustrated. “So what the fuck do you want me to do?”

“See a professional!” Gaz implored him, her thin shell of sass suddenly buckling under the seriousness of the situation. “You have to talk through your violent urges before this happens again. You’ve already nearly gotten expelled for fighting. Now you’ve strangled someone to death --”

Dib attempted to cut her off. “You’re making this sound a lot more malicious than it --”

“ _To death, Dib_!” Gaz shouted over him, slamming a fist down on the table. “This isn’t a freak accident. This isn’t like you pushed him and he tripped and fell wrong. You put your hands on his throat and you kept them there until he stopped breathing.” She stood, gaze burning into Dib’s back, hands shaking and lips pursed.

“I thought my reaction was proportional,” Dib replied, voice low. “I never wanted to kill him. I was just upset with him.”

“How long until you lose your temper again? How long until someone else gets hurt?”

“I have like 8 months left and then I graduate,” he replied glibly. “I think I can bottle it all up for a little longer.”

“Okay, and what then?” Gaz demanded as Dib busied himself with collecting surgical implements. “If you get into a fight with someone once you’re out of high school, it’s going to be so much worse. You’re already legally an adult. I just …” Gaz sighed in frustration. “I’m worried. I don’t want you to end up locked away for good.”

Dib huffed and strode angrily to the sink to scrub his hands. It was really none of Gaz’s business what he decided to do with his life, or the people who got in the way of him living it.

“Therapy has done wonders for me. I’m sure I can recommend someone to you,” Gaz said quietly as Dib pulled on a mask and gloves, then pretended to be extremely interested in the sterile packaging of the scalpel he was holding. She watched as he slowly made his way back over, but didn’t try to further engage him in conversation.

“Wash your hands and put some gloves on if you’re going to help,” Dib said flatly, feeling relieved when Gaz nodded and headed towards the sink.

He was wildly aware that something was wrong with him but, to be perfectly honest, he’d never much cared about it before now. He knew that he wasn’t going to make his classmates or teachers like him and after the way he’d been treated, he had zero desire to. But now that he’d snapped hard enough to kill Zim …

“Do you care about him or don’t you?” Gaz asked desperately.

The question caught him off-guard. He sat down heavily in the chair next to the table and leaned back, staring up at the tangle of exposed pipes and wires that made up the basement ceiling. “I do … but it hurts,” he whispered. “I feel so conflicted about everything and I don’t know what feelings are the right ones, much less what to do about any of this.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the flow of tears that desperately wanted to burst forth. The reality of his actions was really beginning to set in, along with what he could only describe as heartache and thorough disgust for himself.

“I’m in this hole that I know I’ve dug for myself,” he said, putting an arm over his face, “and it feels awful knowing that I can’t fix things and I can’t fight back. I know that, even if I try to make myself happy the rug will get pulled out from under me. It always does. It’s a cosmic constant. So I do shit like hurt the only person I have feelings for, so there’s no chance of being happy only to lose it.” He sat up and turned towards Zim, shoulders shaking as he tried not to openly sob. “He wanted it to stop … he wanted a truce and I called him a liar. And now I just wish I could restart and do things right so that maybe one person wouldn’t hate me.”

He had spent so long denying how horrible and lonely he felt that facing it head-on _now_ felt like being obliterated by a runaway train. In that moment, he would have traded all the proof in the world for just one person who understood him.

And he was really scared that the only person who might be willing to was dead right now.

“We’re gonna find a way to fix this.”

Gaz’s voice so close to him made him jump, and he quickly adjusted his mask to wipe away some stray tears.

“But we should maybe hurry,” Gaz continued, graciously pretending that Dib’s sniffling and hiccuping breaths were nothing out of the ordinary. “How long has it been?”

“Maybe like half an hour?” Dib guessed nervously.

“Do we have to worry about him being braindead?” Gaz asked.

“Um. His PAK reattached, so I don’t think so,” Dib replied, though he was obviously less than confident in his guess. “The PAK is like a brain anyways, so it might not matter if the organic one is working.”

Gaz handed over the pacemaker, then peered at Zim worriedly. “Should we be concerned about him waking up in the middle of this, then?”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s … I didn’t think of that,” Dib mumbled as he stood up to go scour the shelves. He had a few things stashed away that might be of use, and it didn’t take long for him to dig up a vial and some sterile needles. He brought everything back to the table, drew some of the liquid in the bottle up into a syringe, and handed it over to a dubious Gaz.

“If he starts moving, inject him with that,” Dib said simply, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to ask of someone.

Gaz picked up the bottle and looked the label over. “Ketamine?” she asked, incredulous. “ _Horse tranquilizers_??? Why do we have that sitting around??”

“For … you know … tranquilizing runaway horses,” Dib mumbled without looking up.

“ _Dib_.”

“Okay. Fine! I stole it from the lab. It was for this, except when I originally pictured _this_ —” He gestured wildly to the Irken lying prone in front of him, “— I thought I’d be cataloguing organs, not trying to bring him back to life.” Current events were putting all the fucked-up things he’d done or planned to do into horrifying perspective. “Regardless, though, I’m gonna need to open up his chest cavity, unless there’s a laparoscopy kit sitting around somewhere. Is this going to be too gross for you?”

Gaz shook her head. “If it’s anything like dissecting a fetal pig, I should be fine. At least Zim doesn’t smell like formaldehyde.”

[///]

Dib nodded and wasted no time getting down to work. As much as he was fairly certain that Zim wasn’t losing valuable brain cells, he didn’t really want to dally. The sooner Zim was breathing again, the sooner Dib could stop feeling like a disgusting pile of shit.

“What are you gonna do with him when he wakes up?” Gaz asked softly as Dib worked.

“I haven’t really gotten that far,” he admitted as he finished sterilizing from Zim’s neck to his stomach. “I can’t really just drop him off at home after this, though. It’s not like he’s going to conveniently forget what happened. I guess I could keep him in the basement for the time being …”

“I’m not going to let you _Silence-of-the-Lambs_ him, Dib,” Gaz said with a roll of her eyes. “Say someone _does_ report him missing. How the hell are you going to justify holding him hostage in the basement?”

Dib let out a sigh, attempting to center himself before he started cutting. “It’s a long shot, but I could try deleting that memory manually,” he said, feeling slightly light-headed as the scalpel sunk into Zim’s skin. “A while back I made a program that should be able to interface with most Irken tech. It translates text from Irken and everything. And I’ve got a PAK cable that I bribed GIR to bring me. I can get rid of the past few hours, drug him up with enough Ketamine to keep him unconscious for the next few hours, and dump him back at his base.”

Gaz gave him a hard look, brows knitted together, and Dib braced himself for the inevitable explanation for why his plan was either immoral or unfeasible.

“Have you thought about maybe … going back further than that?”

It took all of Dib’s concentration to complete the incision before reacting. “How far are you thinking?” he asked skeptically.

“You could go back to when he first came here, to Earth,” Gaz suggested quietly. “That way he’s never met you, from his point of view. You can start over.”

Dib turned back to his work. “I dunno … do you remember Zim from six years ago? He was an absolute maniac.”

“Better than a Zim who wants revenge on you for killing him,” Gaz pointed out.

Dib bit the inside of his cheek irritably. There was a drawback to nearly every option. Erasing the bare minimum meant that Zim might eventually be able to figure out that something had happened. After all, missing time certainly wasn’t a normal occurrence. But if he erased too much, he ran the risk of having to relive the past 6 years all over again, and he would really rather avoid that outcome altogether.

He finished the incision and stared down at his work. The cuts were about as clean as could be expected, and nothing seemed to be oozing out, so he appeared to have licked out and avoided nicking an artery or perforating an important organ.

“Do you want to give a speech before you open him, or what?” Gaz asked dryly.

“I’m just … mentally preparing myself,” Dib said, holding up his hands. “This is weirder than I thought it would be.”

He set the scalpel down, put a hand on Zim’s chest, and then carefully peeled the layers of fat and dermis aside before he could lose his nerve. When he was finished, he sat back for a moment to fully appreciate the alien anatomy laid out before him. His old x-ray goggles really hadn’t done Zim’s anatomy justice. What he’d assumed was a single organ was now quite obviously several closely intertwined organs. They were packed neatly between bubble-wrap-like layers of fat that presumably protected them from harm, given that the two large ribs on either side were all that protected Zim’s insides in the event of impact. It was underneath these, sitting right in the center of Zim’s chest, that Dib finally located Zim’s heart. Dib was itching to investigate things further, but he reminded himself that they were on a tight schedule. He couldn’t be sure how long Zim’s body would actually be viable for.

“Okay,” Dib sighed, reaching for the container that held the tiny, ML-emblazoned pacemaker. “I’ve watched enough of the promo videos for this thing to be 99% sure I can do this. It’s supposed to be so easy, you can practically do it on yourself.”

He was about to figure out the best way to access the heart, when a flash of silver caught his eye. In between the striations of muscle in Zim’s heart was something that was definitely not organic. Dib cocked his head and leaned in slightly. The silver strands appeared to be moving, slowly weaving their way through Zim’s still heart.

“What’s going on?” Gaz asked from over his shoulder.

Dib leaned back. “Look at that. There’s like … I don’t know what the hell they are.”

Gaz furrowed her brow as she watched, mumbling a soft, “What in the fuck?” before sitting back. “Are they some sort of cybernetic?”

Dib opened his mouth to reply, but was stunned into silence when he saw Zim’s heart suddenly quiver and beat.

Just once.

But he was sure he’d seen it.

“Gaz … the injection,” he whispered with quiet urgency.

Dib was very lucky on two fronts. The first was that Gaz had the wherewithal to refrain from asking stupid questions like “what?” and “why?” in the middle of a crisis. The second was that Dib was quick on his feet and jumped up fast enough to hold Zim down a split second before he started moving. He pinned an arm to the table so Gaz could have a straight shot at injecting enough Ketamine to subdue a small horse into the suddenly feisty Irken.

“Wha … whus … Dib?” Zim slurred hoarsely, squinting as he tried to focus on Dib’s face.

“Don’t move … please don’t move,” Dib begged.

“What … happened?” Zim croaked, looking distressed as he fought the chemicals that had begun to circulate through his body. He lifted his head and came face to face with his own guts. He looked up at Dib in abject horror. “Why can I see my insides?” he squeaked.

“You’re gonna be okay … just stay still,” Dib whispered under his breath.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be able to see my squeedlyspooch. What … Happened?” Zim’s expression suddenly turned fearful and he squirmed in Dib’s grip. “You … you killed me!”

[///end]

“Calm down,” Dib pleaded, desperately trying to hold him still.

“You knocked my PAK off and you held me down and strangled me to death!!” Zim shrieked in a blind panic, attempting to kick Dib off him.

“Gaz!” Dib yelped as Zim’s foot connected with his ribs.

Gaz quickly grabbed Zim’s ankles and pinned them down against the table. Luckily, his movements were already growing slower and less coordinated. His head flopped to the side and his eyes slowly found their way up to Dib’s as he croaked out a plaintive, “Why?”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Dib soothed, breath catching in his throat. “I’m going to fix everything, Zim. I promise …”

Zim’s eyes crossed and his eyelids finally grew too heavy for him to keep open. His entire body relaxed, head lolling to the side. When he had been still for several beats, Dib nodded his head in the direction of his laptop sitting on a cluttered desk in the far corner. “Can you grab me that? It should already have the right cables so I can get to work on his PAK.”

Gaz pulled off her gloves and hurried away before returning with the machine, which she set down on the table.

“What the fuck just happened?” she demanded, looking pale.

“I think the cables in his PAK wired themselves into his heart and restarted it,” Dib said. His voice felt far away and his thoughts felt disjointed. Hearing Zim call him out made the world too painful to face head-on and he wished he could just leave the suddenly impossibly claustrophobic basement for a little while.

“You can sew, right?” Dib asked as he pulled his gloves off, then handed the box of spares to Gaz so she could swap hers out. “We’re gonna have to tag-team, here.”

Gaz nodded, looking slightly pale. “Yeah, I’m decent. Five years of making plushies and cosplay is finally coming in handy.”

Dib pulled open a drawer and handed her a suture kit before setting to work getting the cables hooked up to Zim’s PAK.

“Should I load up another syringe?” Gaz asked nervously. “I don’t want him waking up in the middle of this.”

Dib cast a glance at Zim, who was breathing evenly but still clearly out for the count. “No, I don’t want to accidentally overdose him. That dose seems to have worked pretty well.”

Gaz bit her lip. “A half dose, maybe? Just in case?”

Dib looked uncertain. Zim seemed to have both a robust constitution in some ways and an extremely delicate one in others. It was hit or miss what he’d end up being horribly sensitive to and what would have little to no effect on him.

“So we’re covered if things go sideways?” Gaz added.

Dib relented and gave her a reserved nod. “Okay, but we can’t jump the gun on it.”

“Agreed,” Gaz said, visibly relieved as she proceeded to fill the syringe up exactly halfway.

Dib turned his attention back to the computer. The custom Irken operating system emulator he’d written mimicked a Irken computer within the confines of his extremely jailbroken Hackintosh, while also translating all of the Irken text into English. He’d built the system piecemeal from what he’d been able to observe of Zim’s technology, as well as the hardware he’d stolen on missions into the base. The emulator wasn’t always perfect, but it was more than usable.

The only problem was that most Irken software was not designed to arrange things in a way that made sense to a human. Dib wasn’t sure if it was a case of having an extremely alien method to the madness or if Irkens just sucked at organizational systems in general. Either way, it took several minutes of poking around before he finally found the memory bank.

That portion, at least, seemed to be organized in a way that made sense. There was the main memory feed that appeared to be an uninterrupted stream of Zim’s consciousness since birth. Or hatching. Or however it was that Irkens came into being. There were further folders of apparently-important memories, organized by event — given titles like _First Day of Life, Academy Acceptance, Operation Impending Doom I, The Great Assigning_ — and another folder that was simply named “Vault”.

Dib glanced at his sister, who was only a tenth of the way done stitching Zim up, at most. He probably had time. He clicked on it and scrolled through the stills for the video files stored inside, selecting the first one that piqued his interest. This would be an excellent time to test drive just how well his audio translation program worked with something that wasn’t either a live, intercepted feed or direct speech.

The first few seconds of his chosen video showed Zim’s perspective from a platform in front of several metallic structures that looked almost like PAKs with dozens of lights covering their surface and wires trailing off the back of them in thick bundles. In the shadows, Dib could make out a crowd.

“So this … isn’t a surprise party?”

Zim’s voice sounded much smaller and meeker than Dib was used to.

“For the last time, Zim! This is an Existence Evaluation. You’re on trial for your crimes against Irk!”

The video panned shakily to a much taller Irken that Dib recognized from some of Zim’s video feeds. Dib’s own translation software had always spit out the name “Purple”, but Dib figured that was too on-the-nose to be the Irken’s actual name. Although the second half of the tallest was supposedly called “Red”, so the fuck did Dib know about alien naming conventions?

“Crimes??” Zim sputtered, and Dib could see him nervously pulling at the cuffs that bound his tiny hands. “You must have me mixed up with someone else. What sort of crimes could Zim possibly have committed against you, my Tallest?”

“Not _just us,_ Zim! You’ve made all of our lives a living nightmare ever since —”

“What on earth are you watching?” Gaz asked, glancing up to give him a bewildered look.

Dib clicked back to the folder. “Zim on trial for … something,” he said with a frown.

“What did I tell you? He’s too incompetent to have been sent here on a mission,” Gaz replied. “Plus, using earth as an alien prison planet just seems apt.”

Dib pulled up the time stamp, which the computer took a moment to process before rendering in a date format Dib could recognize. “This is from five years ago,” he said, brow furrowed in confusion. “What the hell is he still doing here?”

“Maybe they found him not guilty?” Gaz offered with a small shrug.

“Maybe …” Dib exited out of the video, then dragged the entire folder onto his desktop for later. While those were busy downloading, he scrolled to another video at random and clicked on it. It started with Zim in a bright white room, cheap looking robes cascading down past his feet as he sat down in a chair. The Irken in front of him, who was significantly taller, seemed to be plugging things into Zim’s PAK before placing a cap with wires streaming off it onto Zim’s head.

“Alright, I’m Technician Zad. Do you know why you’ve been sent to us today, Zim?” the other Irken, pulling out a tablet.

Zim sighed. “Disrespecting-slash-disregarding the chain of command. Again.”

The Irken across from him scrolled down on his tablet, brows raising. “You’re certainly no stranger to the Corrections Department. Responsible for Overload Days I and II. Endangering a fellow smeet. Creating unauthorized life forms. Telling a fellow Irken you—”

Zad stopped, stared in confusion at the tablet, then at Zim with a tinge of disgust.

Zim gave a cocky little head wiggle that manifested as a vaguely nauseating shaky cam. “Go on. _Say it_ ,” he said, almost tauntingly.

The irritated technician pursed their lips, opened their mouth slightly, then abruptly closed it, eyes narrowed.

“Why am I the only person on Irk who can talk about _love_?” Zim huffed.

“Because that’s a banned word,” Zad replied through gritted teeth.

“Then how come I can say it?” Zim asked. His tone seemed confused and genuine.

“You shouldn’t be able to!” the Technician exclaimed. “Where did you even learn that??”

Zim stomped his foot irritably. “I keep telling you people that I didn’t _learn it anywhere_! It was just inside me!”

Zad frowned and continued tapping away on the tablet. “Well, the diagnostic scan is still showing an awful lot of errors. Every Irken has a few, though, so with a handful more treatments, we should be able to bring you into an acceptable range. Maybe try to reinstate the filter again …” Zad added under their breath.

Zim looked up and the edges of the video grew slightly darker as his eyes narrowed. “And if I say no?”

“You were ordered to come here, Zim. There is no ‘saying no’.”

“And if I rip these cables out and leave?” Zim asked, standing up. Not that it made much difference. He still barely came up to chest height on the irritated looking Technician.

“Then the next room you see will be the inside of a cell, pending an Existence Evaluation.”

Zim stayed standing a moment longer, then slowly sunk back down to his chair in silence.

“We don’t like wiping people outright. That’s the whole reason this department exists,” the Technician explained with a look that almost seemed sympathetic. “We have a 99.999% success rate. There hasn’t even been an existence evaluation in my entire lifetime.”

Zim looked away and focused on picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of his oversized robes. “Every time I go through this, I end up forgetting things,” he said quietly.

“Then they were things you’re better off having forgotten.” Zad swiped up on the tablet, presumably adjusting levels. “And just to make sure you forget all the things you’re better off without, we’re doing three rounds today. Are you ready?”

Zim sighed and reclined his head back. “As ready as I ever am.”

The video suddenly distorted, bright lines of color shooting from one side to the other and static obscuring the room as the image shook. From Dib’s speakers screeched a noise that he could only describe as sounding like the time had accidentally called a fax number. He glanced nervously at Zim just to make sure the noise hadn’t woken him from his drug-induced slumber, but he seemed as dead to the world as ever.

Just as suddenly as it came, the distortion disappeared and Zim lifted a trembling hand, urging the Technician to stop.

“S-something doesn’t feel right!” he stuttered out. His voice sounded thick, as if his tongue wasn’t cooperating.

Before he could move another inch, the distortion ripped across the screen again.

All Dib could do was watch in horror as it slowly dawned on him that he wasn’t the only one who had been subjected to less-than-humane mental health “care”. Clearly he and Zim had more in common than he’d ever realized.

He clicked out of the video, having seen all he could stomach for the moment. He was running short on time, and there was one particular memory he felt obligated to view before he decided what to do. He scrolled rapidly back through the years of the main memory stream until he found the day Zim had turned up in class. He scrubbed forward through the day, until he found the point where a twelve-year-old version of himself confronted Zim outside the school building. He turned the volume down and played the memory from Zim’s point of view.

The first thing that hit Dib was how unhinged he looked. It wasn’t even up for debate who the aggressor was in the situation. He watched with growing horror as an obviously terrified Zim evaded Dib’s attempt to handcuff him, sprinting from the school grounds.

“Why are you torturing yourself with that?” Gaz asked, slightly aggravated.

“I just …” Dib exited out of the video and slumped backwards in his chair as his stomach twisted into knots. “I just needed to know for sure that everything was my fault.”

“You could have just asked me. I’ll always be here to tell you things are your fault,” Gaz quipped with a smirk.

“I’m not in the fucking mood, Gaz. Okay?”

“Alright, alright,” Gaz said as she pulled her gloves off and tossed them into the trash can on the other side of the room.

“I never realized how awful I was to him,” Dib mumbled miserably.

Gaz gave him a sympathetic look. “In your defense, you weren’t necessarily _wrong_. He genuinely _was_ here to subjugate the human race. You couldn’t have known then that he’d suck at it.”

That somehow didn’t make Dib feel any better, especially since his growing empathy was rapidly dipping into the realm of romantic inclinations. Zim might be the only other person who could really understand him.

“Oh, shit ...”

Dib looked at Gaz, who was looking at Zim, whose antennae had started twitching.

“Are you done wiping his memories??” she whispered frantically as Zim began to stir.

“I haven’t even decided where to start from!” Dib frantically navigated back to the memory stream, his thoughts bright and loud, brain thoroughly in panic mode.

“Might wanna figure that out soon!” Gaz said as Zim mumbled something unintelligible.

“Ah … um … shit!! Just let me think,” Dib babbled as he tried to get back to the memory of Zim’s first day on Earth.

“No time for thinking, Dib! Either hit him with another dose of ketamine or do the wipe now!” Gaz growled through gritted teeth as she attempted to hold an increasingly squirmy Zim still.

“Okay, okay! I’ve got it!” He selected the portion he wanted to wipe, and hit delete.

But not before Zim struggled and jerked his laptop forward. Dib watched as the highlighted portion increased…

Then disappeared completely.

Zim, who had been attempting to kick Gaz off him, suddenly fell still. Gaz looked up into Dib’s horrified gaze.

“What happened??” she demanded, eyes wide and face slightly paler than normal. “Did you do it??”

“I meant to go back to when he first got to earth but he tugged the laptop and …” Dib looked down in time to see a still image of Zim sitting in front of the PAK technician before the window went dark and was replaced by a terminal.

_Erasing data and pulling backups …_

“Did you erase him or what??” Gaz demanded frantically.

Dib shook his head slowly. “I went back too far. Like _years_ too far.”

“Please tell me we’re not going to be stuck babysitting a four-foot-tall alien,” Gaz whispered, all the normal levity gone from her voice.

“It’s not quite that far,” Dib said as he watched Zim’s chest rise and fall. “But I won’t know where in his timeline this is until he stops … rebooting.”

“Is that what’s happening?” Gaz asked quietly.

Dib was momentarily distracted from responding as new text appeared on the screen.

_Delete successful!_

_Confirming identity …_

_Resolving with database ..._

_ZIM 042 confirmed._

_Loading secure backups from epoch to latest time stamp …_

“Earth to Dib?”

Dib briefly glanced up, his brain feeling like a record that kept skipping over the same verse, if that verse was, “ _oh fuck, oh shit, oh god —_ ”.

“Yeah. Sorry. I was hoping the terminal might tell me something helpful or interesting or …” He trailed off again as a prompt finally showed up on the screen.

_Backup has significant errors. Continue restarting from this point?_

Gaz finally walked around behind him to read over his shoulder, sighing audibly when she read the prompt. “God dammit, Zim.”

“Should I just say ‘yes’?” Dib asked nervously.

Gaz sat down wearily on the floor. “What’s the other option?”

“I’m afraid to see what happens if I say no … But I don’t know how I’m going to deal with an even crazier Zim than I was planning for …”

“Consider it penance?” Gaz suggested.

“I guess,” Dib said quietly. But he didn’t move. “Watching all that stuff made me feel all sorts of weird feelings,” he admitted as he stared at the blinking cursor at the end of _y/n?__ on the screen. “I feel pretty bad for everything I did to him. But I also feel bad for him in general. I know how it feels to have everyone think you’re crazy and broken. I know how it feels to have your autonomy taken away. Have people hurt you while they swear up and down they’re making you better and helping you …”

He looked towards Zim’s unconscious form on the cold, gleaming autopsy table and felt his throat tighten at how close he’d come to gutting Zim in that very spot. If things had gone differently today, he might still have even wanted it. Now all he felt was an almost frantic desire to hold Zim close and make him feel understood and care me for. Perhaps, in time, Dib could even make him feel loved.

Before he could think it through any further, he slammed the _y_ key and held his breath.

_Rebuilding neural network from last memory point ..._

“What are you going to tell him when he wakes up?” Gaz asked quietly.

“That I care about him a whole awful lot …” Dib whispered, lost in thought.

Gaz raised an eyebrow. “I mean about why he’ll be waking up in a basement with two people he doesn’t recognize, sitting on a makeshift operating table.”

“Oh.” Dib really wished he had thought this out a bit better. “Generic, ‘there’s been an accident’?” he offered with a hopeful grin.

“How do you explain the home surgery and the bruised throat?”

“I don’t know,” Dib whispered. His head felt like it was stuck in a tornado and he could scarcely make heads or tails of anything. He knew he couldn’t tell Zim the truth, but he also didn’t feel clever enough to concoct a reasonable lie at that point in time. “I’m going to need to see if I can reset his base to wipe all security footage, and possibly reset GIR as well. I’ll also have to explain how he’s been here for so long without there being any record of it.”

“Okay, how about this,” Gaz said, eyes still unwaveringly set on the eerily still Zim. “He’s still got those giant squids in one of the labs, right?”

“Last I checked, yeah.”

“And you’re an obsessive little creep so I’m gonna interpret that to mean you checked up on some sneaky security feed this morning.”

Dib raised an eyebrow but opted to keep his mouth shut.

“Tell him that one of those attacked him and the only thing you could think of to try and stop it was to electrocute it,” Gaz continued. “But that obviously fried the base, so it had to reset itself. And then we can infer that it must have zapped Zim’s brain back to the past as well.”

Dib frowned. “I’d be really upset with myself if I’d done something _that_ stupid.”

“Well, at least it’s on-brand,” Gaz replied irritably.

_ZIM 042 build complete. Release cables and prepare for reboot._

Dib leaned forward and pulled the cables from Zim’s PAK. The terminal disappeared and Dib shut the laptop before rolling his chair over to the desk and stashing it. The last thing he needed with Zim re-uploading all sorts of traumatic memories.

Dib returned to the table just Zim suddenly moaned and stirred, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.


	2. Like Puzzle Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim finally wakes up. Dib has to decide what version of the past he wants to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said 2 chapters. Don’t panic. This would have just been _ungodly_ long as one chapter. The second will be up in a few hours ✌️ 
> 
> (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker is my new favorite band and, like all great things, I have found near the end of their run.)

_Where words can't say_

_I'll try 'em anyway_

_I don't know how poetic I can_

_Articulate how I appreciate_

_Everything, especially your human soul_

\- [Alien, Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lJrejNZhbb0)

* * *

  
“Zim?” Dib asked softly, a little shocked at his own eagerness.

Even though his tone was nothing but gentle, Zim sat bolt upright, wincing in pain as a hand flew to his chest. It took him a moment to uncurl, and when he did, he looked the two of them up and down and chirped out something that Dib couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“We don’t speak Irken, Zim,” Dib said, trying to keep his voice light and even. He was worried that any sign of panic would set Zim off when he was already unpredictable.

Zim looked confused for a moment, cocking his head as he took Dib and Gaz in. “Who are you??” he croaked.

The state of his voice caused Dib physical pain, which he tried to bear with unwavering stoicism. “It’s … Dib and Gaz,” Dib stuttered out. He had to remind himself that everything from here forwards relied on Dib playing the part of the concerned friend who had no idea Zim essentially had retrograde amnesia. “Do you not …”

“Where am I?? Is this Irk?” Zim asked, panic rising in his voice as he frantically looked around the room.

Dib’s mouth went dry. He was drowning over the guilt of lying, but this was his only shot to really sell it. “N-no … this is Earth, Zim. You know … the place you’ve been living for the past six years?”

A shadow of concern passed over Zim’s face. “Earth??” he whispered to himself. “The last thing I remember was being on Irk, getting sent for Correction.” He rubbed his throat. “What happened? Why does everything hurt?”

“I’m not really sure where to start, if you don’t even remember when you got here,” Dib said nervously.

“Start with why I’ve been cut open and see if that jogs my memory,” Zim replied irritably.

Dib glanced at Gaz, relieved when she took it upon herself to do the explaining. Dib was terrified he’d give himself away if he had to do it. At the same time, he couldn’t stop staring at Zim, taking in every little bit of body language. He’d been half ready for Zim to sit up and immediately start firing on them, but this Zim was oddly reserved. He had assumed that the backup of Zim’s memories and personality had been corrupted after the fact, but as he thought back to the memory from the Corrections department, it dawned on him that the Zim from that memory had been a good deal more relaxed than the Zim he’d met six years prior. Hell, the Zim from that memory had apparently gotten in trouble for confessing his _love_ to someone. _That_ definitely wasn’t the Zim he’d known back in middle school. That Zim dreaded Valentine’s Day with an absolute passion and threatened to murder anyone who so much as batted an eyelash in his direction.

Dib was knocked from his thoughts by a swift elbow to his ribs.

“Ow! What‽” he whined, crossing his arms protectively over his chest.

“I asked how I know you. And why I’m on this planet,” Zim repeated. “I don’t remember anything about a base or giant squids or who you people are. So what’s going on here?”

“That’s … kinda complicated, Zim,” Dib said nervously.

“You don’t say,” Zim drawled with an eye roll, then immediately cringed and scrabbled frantically at his contact lenses until they popped off.

Dib watched as they bounced loudly across the room and rolled underneath a utility shelf on the opposite wall.

“Ow!! What were those?? Did you do that to me, too??” Zim demanded, wiping gunk from the corners of his eyes and squinting angrily towards the Membrane siblings.

It was a good thing nothing much grossed Dib out, or he might have been rethinking that whole “attraction” thing right about now.

“No, _you_ did that to you,” Dib corrected. “You’re on a pre-contact planet. That’s part of your disguise.”

Zim looked between the two of them. “Pre … _Irken_ contact?” he asked carefully.

Dib shook his head. “Pre- _anything_ contact. This is kind of a lonely corner of the Galaxy. We’re the only ones for light years in any direction.”

Zim’s antenna perked and Dib had to fake a coughing fit to avoid openly laughing. It was so strange, so alien, and yet so undeniably _Zim_. If he hadn’t already been tumbling head-over-feet for him, emotionally, that would have been the death knell to the rest of Dib’s long standing ill-will.

“Irk is surrounded by nothing _but_ inhabited planets. What fucking star system am I in??” Zim demanded. “What am I doing on this _Earth_ and who are you people??”

“You’re gonna need to sit down for this—”

Zim sarcastically gestured towards all of himself, quite obviously seated on the metal table.

“Well, there’s step one handled, then,” Dib muttered. “Alright. Let’s start from the top. I’m Dib, and this is my sister Gaz. Our dad is top scientist and pop-culture icon Professor Membrane.”

“If he’s Head Scientist, what am I doing wasting time with his smeets?” Zim asked with a raised eyebrow.

Dib opened his mouth, shut it, and gave the air a quizzical look before turning to Gaz. “Huh. Why _didn’t_ Zim ever kidnap Dad?”

Gaz rolled her eyes. “Okay, first of all, would you _please_ not give the alien Invader any ideas right now? Second, this is why you’re garbage at English class. You can’t stay on point to save your life.”

“I have ADHD, Gaz.”

“Yeah, and this is Exhibit A.” Gaz took him by the shoulders and turned him back towards Zim. “Give him the cliff notes version of the last half decade or I will, and you _won’t_ like it.”

“Alright, alright,” Dib grumbled, shoving her hands away. He took a deep breath just as a shiver shook Zim’s small frame. He felt a pang of guilt as he realized he’d left Zim in his cut-up tunic on a metal table in the middle of their freezing basement. Poor Zim deserved to at least be moderately comfortable while Dib filled him in.

Dib stood up, eliciting a string of angry chirps from Zim, who was bent over defensively, protecting the long incision down his belly.

“ _Sit back down_ until I know what on Irk is going on here!” Zim growled.

So much for Zim’s calm demeanor. Not like Dib could really blame him. Realizing you were missing several years, presumably due to an accident you couldn’t even recall the events leading up to, had to be extremely unsettling.

Dib held up his hands and walked backwards towards the desk a few meters behind him. “I’m just getting you a blanket, okay?” he said slowly as Zim watched with a glare, antennae trembling. Dib picked up the blanket from the desk, shook it out to show he wasn’t trying any funny business, then gently tossed it across the room to the frazzled Irken, who caught it and winced.

“I’m going to try and condense six year’s worth of information down as much as possible, but you can’t interrupt, alright?” Dib asked as he slowly sank back into his chair a safe distance away from Zim, who still looked like he might go feral if Dib so much as sneezed without warning.

“Alright,” Zim agreed grudgingly, shaking off his cut-up tunic and pulling the blanket around himself. He gave Dib a little nod. “Proceed.”

“You came here six years ago as an Invader,” Dib started, shooting Zim a warning look when he opened his mouth. “For whatever reason, you disguised yourself as a human kid and showed up in my class. I knew right off the bat you were an alien. No one but Gaz believed me, though. Everyone else thought I was _crazy_ —”

Gaz gently touched his arm. She didn’t even need to say anything for him to get the message. He could downplay the events of their past as much as he wanted, and that was really in everyone’s best interest at the moment. The difficult bit was that Dib scarcely knew more about Zim’s background than Zim did at the moment, and he was going to have to string together his paltry bits of knowledge into something that sounded moderately plausible.

“It wasn’t a good start to things and we were on bad terms for a while,” Dib said simply, getting himself back on track. “At some point — I don’t really know when, because you never really told me much about it, and also because I think it took you awhile to fully accept it — you found out your mission here was fake. Your leaders marooned you here on purpose to get rid of you. For _what_ , I have no idea. But eventually, you stopped trying to take over earth. Things settled down between us. We called a truce and got pretty close.” Dib looked up, because even though what he was about to say was an _absolute_ lie, for once, he had the emotion to back it up fully. “Close enough that you’ve been my partner for the past couple weeks,” he said softly.

The room was suddenly silent enough for the hum of the overhead lights to be damn-near deafening. Dib could tell Gaz was holding her breath, and he wondered if he’d be getting an earful later tonight.

“You mean like a … like a _mate_?” Zim asked skeptically.

Dib nodded. He really hoped that Zim’s bewildered expression wasn’t because Zim wanted fuckall to do with him.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Zim started carefully.

Dib’s stomach dropped. _Great_. He should have known better than to ever think his stupid plan could actually work.

“What is the nature of being Earth mates?” Zim asked nervously.

Dib shrugged helplessly. “Well … what do you want to know?”

“Is it …” Zim searched for the words. “Purely physical? Only for reproduction purposes? Diplomatic? Based on emotional connection?”

The barrage caught Dib off guard and all he could do was stare. Zim ducked his head in embarrassment.

“I’m just trying to get a read on what our dynamic is,” he explained. “On Irk, this sort of thing is dictated by rank and loyalty to your superiors. I guess what I’m getting at is … _What am I to you_?”

Dib let out a long breath as he tried desperately to collect his words. “I mean, some of its physical attraction, definitely. But there’s also an emotional connection. We have a lot in common so there’s a companionship aspect. It’s early, but I don’t feel like it would be out of line to say we care about each other and … probably love each other.”

Zim perked up at that. “Earth mates are allowed to … _love_ each other?” His voice dipped below a whisper and he looked nervous, as if he was expecting one of his tallest to show up and drag him off to be Corrected or put on trial. But as Dib nodded, Zim visibly relaxed. “I don’t know what I’ve already told you, but on Irk? _‘Love’_ is a banned word. You're not even supposed to be able to physically say it,” Zim explained, words tumbling out in a rush. “I think the PAK Technicians tried to fix that about me. A few times, as a matter of fact. But I could still say it. More importantly, I could still feel it.”

He gave Dib a small smile that made his heart flutter. There was absolutely something there, and Dib was dying to explore it further.

“Just know that I don’t expect anything from you, considering your memory is fucked and all, okay?” Dib said softly. “If you still like me, that’s amazing. But I want you to get to know me again. Get comfortable.”

“I’d like to get to know you,” Zim said earnestly.

Dib felt like he might actually faint on the spot. It had actually worked. Zim had believed it. More importantly, Dib had lied his way straight to Zim’s heart. Amnesia and falsehoods may have been the shakiest foundation in the entire history of foundations, but who cared?? Dib was going to take what he could get. He could shore things up later. Besides, who was he _really_ hurting? The overall goodness of the universe could really only benefit from Dib’s decision to stop trying to fight Zim, and start trying to f--

A gagging noise from Gaz made both Zim and Dib abruptly stop gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes and look over in her direction.

“Should I leave you two alone?” she asked with a sideways look at Dib.

“Actually, I was gonna ask if you could keep an eye on him while I go make sure the base hasn’t, Uh … caught fire.” He gave Gaz a pointed look.

“Ah. Yeah. You should go do that now instead of later,” she agreed.

“I’ll come with you,” Zim said brightly, sliding off the table. The moment his feet hit the floor, however, he stifled a shriek and rapidly turned a rather sickly yellow color.

“Shit, Zim! You’ve got to be careful!” Dib said as he hurried over and, without thinking, scooped him up. It seemed that, at least subconsciously, he’d been dying for an opportunity to be physical and he’d now been granted an opening.

“What are you doing??” Zim squawked in alarm, though he was still too tightly curled up from pain to do anything about it.

“You’re still hurt. I didn’t want you to have to walk all the way upstairs,” Dib explained as Zim trembled in his arms.

“You can’t just _carry_ Zim!!”

“Well, _you_ can’t just _walk_!”

“Yes, I can!” Zim insisted, extending his PAK legs upwards to wave in Dib’s face. “I’ll just use my —”

His words died on his lips as he registered that only half of his PAK legs were intact. He looked up at Dib, his expression horrified.

“My … _my PAK legs_ … what happened to my …”

“Yet another casualty of the giant squid, huh?” Gaz said, interrupting Zim before her brother had a chance to make a fool of himself. She trotted up the steps and opened the door, looking expectantly down at the two of them.

“Just be quick about it, alright?” Zim mumbled, looking resigned.

Dib nodded and hurried up the steps as quickly as he could without jostling Zim. The closest chairs were in the kitchen, so Dib made a beeline for the kitchen table and carefully set Zim down in one of the chairs.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have been so forward,” Dib mumbled, stepping back a bit. “I know you don’t really know me. I’ll try to give you space.”

Zim cocked his head slightly. “Huh? It’s not that! I wouldn’t let anyone carry me. It’s degrading.”

Dib shrunk back slightly. “I didn’t mean for it to be. I feel bad that you’re hurt and I wanted to help. I just don’t know what to —”

All of his words failed him as Zim slumped against him and put an arm around his waist. He stood awkwardly as Zim held him in a side hug.

“Shut up a second and quit worrying,” Zim mumbled, eyes closed. “It’s nice you’re trying to help. I can tell we really meant something to each other … I feel more at ease around you than I probably should.”

The guilt Dib felt upon hearing those words hit him like a swift punch to the gut. He didn’t _deserve_ Zim’s trust. Zim was lucky to be alive, no thanks to him. If anything, Zim’s inherent trust was an argument _against_ how much of an impact Dib had had, and an argument in favor of how good of a job he’d done at deleting all the evidence that he was a sociopathic monster.

 _Oh god_ … Was he cursed to always be a physically abusive monster? What if he snapped again some day and hurt Zim again? What if Zim _remembered_ it that time?? Maybe he should have used this whole thing as an excuse to cut ties with Zim for good, instead. 

“Dib, would you go make sure the entire neighborhood hasn’t burned down, already?” Gaz said as she leaned over the counter, arms hanging over the edge. She gestured in Zim’s general direction. “And you. I feel morally obligated to feed you. Since you’re our hostage. I mean _house guest_.”

“Don’t give him any meat or beans or else he’ll die,” Dib warned as he reticently pulled from Zim’s grasp. “He’s allergic.”

“Beans?” Zim said quizzically.

“Believe me, you aren’t missing anything,” Dib insisted as he walked out of the room.

“Dib! Wai— _oww_!”

Dib walked backwards and poked his head around the corner to see Zim doubled over. He hurried back into the room, brows hovering worriedly above the rims of his glasses. “Don’t hurt yourself … geez,” he murmured, reaching out to put a hand on his back.

“It only hurts so bad because it’s healing,” Zim insisted. “You won’t even be able to see the incision by this time tomorrow.”

“Okay, well, don’t bounce around too much while I’m gone, alright?” Dib said gently.

“You’re coming back, right?” Zim asked, concern and pain etched in his face.

“Yeah, I’ll be back as soon as I make sure none of your abominations have eaten the neighbors,” Dib said, smirking.

Zim looked away, shifted uncomfortably in his seat, then looked back up with the biggest puppy eyes Dib had ever seen. “And I’m staying here, right? For tonight, at least?”

Dib blinked. He could feel his cheeks burning as Zim looked on hopefully. “Oh. Um. I wasn’t sure if you _wanted_ to …”

“I’m still hurt,” Zim said plaintively. “It would be easier to stay here. Plus, I don’t even know what the base _looks like_. It’s not really home to me, right now.”

Dib ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to let his mind wander too much over what a night with Zim might look like. “I guess GIR probably wouldn’t be much help,” he admitted.

Zim gave him an odd look. “You mean my SIR Unit?”

“No, his name is _definitely_ GIR,” Dib assured him.

“Aren’t they usually a Standard Information Retrieval unit?” Zim asked. “What’s the G stand for??”

Dib shrugged. “Dunno. You never told me.”

“Dib,” Gaz said. She shooed him towards the door with a pointed look.

Dib rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. Going. And if I’m not back soon, you can put Zim in my room for the night. Just toss some blankets on the floor for me. I’ll sleep down there and he can have the bed.”

He strode quickly from the room, tugged on his shoes, and headed out the front entry. He lingered with the door cracked for just long enough to make sure Gaz was being appropriately nice to Zim.

“So, _some people_ would say ice cream isn’t a dinner food. I’m here to tell you that those people are _wrong_ …”

He closed the door with a smile on his face and started towards the road. He could have opted to drive to the base and arrive in just a couple minutes, but he needed a walk to clear his thoughts.

He still had whiplash from how quickly he’d gone from angry enough to _literally kill_ his enemy, to eagerly looking forward to sharing the same room tonight. It was difficult to even put himself back in the same headspace as he'd been in earlier and trying to only served to put the magnitude of his mistake in perspective. He had known, deep down, for ages that his unhappiness had taken root _long_ before Zim had arrived. But it had been so _easy_ for him to blame his unhappiness on Zim. Not to mention _cathartic_ , considering Zim could provide a physical altercation that made Dib feel like he was actually doing something productive about his frustrations.

He also knew he'd been falling for Zim for a good long while. It wasn't just that he'd started noticing Zim popping into his head during wank sessions. He somehow felt less alone when Zim was around, especially as Zim stopped trying to set him off as often and started attempting to just coexist. He knew all of these things, but it was so much easier to hold on to his fabricated vision of reality that had been simplified down so that Zim was the _sole source_ of everything bad that had ever happened to him. Even as the truth of the world around him threatened to dismantle all the lies he told himself. His anger in response to his feelings for Zim was clearly just a side effect of attempting to maintain cognitive dissonance for so long.

But now he'd seen the end result of his perpetual rage and he could honestly say he didn't want to walk that path anymore. Moreover, it felt good to finally let go and allow himself to feel the full complexity and warmth of his emotions towards Zim.

It certainly helped that this new Zim may as well have been a completely different person. Beyond the fact that he had no knowledge of his and Dib’s complex history, and beyond even the fact that this Zim had never actually tried to subjugate earth, he was weirdly soft and emotional in a way that Dib found _utterly_ disarming. Especially in his current emotionally vulnerable state.

At the same time, Dib had to admit he was baffled. He had expected Zim’s insanity to have been somewhat stable over the course of his life, prior to the last few years when he finally started to mellow out (no thanks to Dib’s constant, perpetually escalating harassment). He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the fact that a younger Zim had somehow been on a _much_ more even keel than the Zim who showed up on earth six years prior. It really wasn't the sort of thing he could easily shake, and it left him wondering just what in the hell had happened in the intervening years between the point Dib had deleted back to, and Zim's arrival on Earth.

Dib was so lost in his own head that it seemed to like he reached Zim’s base in no time at all. He stopped to take in the sight for the last time before everything started anew. He’d spent years trying to sneak into Zim’s labs, with varying levels of success, so it felt disconcertingly odd to plan on just waltzing up to ask GIR to let him in to delete the base’s computers. He made his way up the walkway, relieved that the garden gnomes and assorted plastic lawn ornaments remained still and quiet as he approached the door. He could hear the TV blaring inside, so he knocked loudly in hopes that GIR would be able to hear him.

“GIR!! It’s Dib!” He felt slightly stupid saying it as if they were long-time friends, but he knew that was _exactly_ the sort of reception he’d be getting from GIR regardless.

The TV paused and Dib could make out a series of excited footsteps before the door swung open. 

“Dib!” GIR squealed, jumping up and down in excitement in the middle of the doorway.

“Hey, buddy,” Dib said, putting a hand on GIR’s head as he stepped inside. “I need a favor—”

Dib’s words died on his tongue as he suddenly realized there was a rather large pig sitting on the couch, staring at him. “Uh. GIR?” he whispered, not taking his eyes off the beady little islands of black in a sea of pink.

GIR bounded over and attempted to wrap his stubby arms around the pig’s neck. “Pig, that’s Dib. Dib, this is my pig!”

“Er … yeah, that’s great, GIR,” Dib said awkwardly. “I’m glad you’re … uh. Keeping busy?”

“It’s movie night!” GIR replied, flopping onto the couch.

“Isn’t every night?” Dib said under his breath. He sighed and chewed his lip nervously. “So, I have a question …”

“I got an answer!” GIR shouted back before adding, “Probably,” with a little shrug.

That was good enough for Dib.

“Is there like a … oh, I dunno,” Dib hemmed, “like a _reset switch_ for the base around, maybe?”

It was perhaps the most thinly-veiled plot in the history of plots. But when it came to GIR, Dib had found it was more productive just to be direct. You couldn’t trick GIR into doing the things you wanted him to do. He just plain wasn’t smart enough for it.

“Oooooh, yeah, we got a reset button. But master said I’m not allowed to touch that,” GIR replied, wringing his hands with a frown.

“That’s the thing, though. Zim _needs_ you to do this for him,” Dib said earnestly.

“Really??” GIR perked back up pretty quickly at that, kicking his feet animatedly.

Dib nodded. “Yep! It’s _so_ important, his _entire future_ might even depend on it.”

Dib’s new game was apparently how much he could twist the truth until it stopped being the truth anymore.

GIR gasped. “His entire future??”

“Exactly. So, I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you can do this for us?” Dib asked, with all the excitement and sincerity of a preschool teacher attempting to coax a difficult four-year-old into tying their shoes.

“Okay!!” GIR shot off the couch and into the kitchen, where Dib dashed after him just in time to see him dive into the trash can.

Dib followed skeptically, peering down before he stuck any part of himself inside. He’d learned the hard way that half the legitimate hidden passages were death traps on their own. But when he looked through the bottom of the trash can, GIR was sitting in the elevator below, motioning him down inside. He sat on the rim, slowly stepping each leg over before sliding down. Once he landed firmly on the ground, the elevator descended downwards as he gave Zim’s ditzy robot companion a contemplative sidelong glance. He’d really rather not have to reboot GIR if he could avoid it.

“Hey … did you know me and Zim are dating?” Dib blurted before he could stop himself. He felt like he was manifesting the reality he wanted and every word he spoke anchored that reality more and more firmly in the present.

GIR hugged his leg, a huge grin on his face. “Aww, you two gonna be so cute together!”

“Yeah, I’m a lucky guy,” Dib said softly. It may have been the first time he ever genuinely felt that he was lucky in any sense. 

The elevator finally stopped and the doors whooshed open. Somehow, Dib could physically sense that he was deeper underground than he ever had been previously. GIR bounced out of the elevator and Dib followed close on his heels. This level was a maze of corridors with various blood-chilling noises emanating from behind every door they passed, and as they wound their way deeper and deeper into the base, Dib became increasingly concerned that GIR didn’t _actually know_ where he was going. He was just about to ask GIR how many more turns they had, when they finally stopped in front of what Dib could only assume was the correct entry.

“ _GIR stay out!!! >:( _ “ had been scribbled in sharpie all over the door, but GIR waved the door open nonetheless.

“Zim’s security is kinda shit,” Dib muttered to himself as he stepped through the door.

And then abruptly stopped on the threshold because the room — which was roughly the size of a large living room — was completely bare, except for a giant red button on a pedestal. It looked like a trap from an 80’s era action film and Dib had a sudden and inexplicable urge to declare that it belonged in a museum.

“Ta-da!! It’s the button room!” GIR said as he bounced around the perimeter.

“How do I … uh …” Dib was at a loss for words. He had been expecting something more akin to the United States nuclear launch codes. Or that Zim had perhaps surgically implanted a key into one of their classmates that Dib would then be forced to eviscerate if he wanted to reset the base. Discovering that Zim kept his reset mechanism in a room dedicated to nothing but a single button was both the dumbest thing he’d ever heard, and the most on-brand thing he could conceive of for Zim. He really should have expected things to be painfully obvious and to-the-point when it came to anything of Zim’s at this point.

“How do I use it?” Dib asked, feeling stupid. Though he figured he’d rather feel stupid _now_ than stupid later because he refused to do a sanity check and irreversibly fucked something up.

“Hit the button!” GIR squealed, clearly growing impatient with Dib’s bewilderment. 

“And that’ll reset the base’s computers?” Dib asked, not taking his eyes off it. 

“Master said —” GIR opened his mouth and a recording of Zim echoed out of it. “GIR!! Don’t touch that button. It’ll erase all of the base computers and anything tied to it. Including you.”

Dib pulled out his phone and quickly set it to airplane mode, just in case. He’d hate to jump on the base’s wifi hotspot somehow and brick his phone. He shoved it back in his pocket and made his way to the massive red button in the center of the room.

So, this was it. Once he hit this button, he could finally relax and get to know Zim on a more intimate level without all of the baggage from their several years worth of fights and the issue of Zim briefly becoming a corpse. He was finally living out his dreams, and it was time to slam the door for good on all his feelings of resentment and blame. He was one hard reset away from a better life.

One simple motion, and he was forever unburdened.

It was really that easy, right?

Before any further doubt could take hold of his mind, he held his breath and pressed down until he felt the button give a solid click.

For a moment, the base was so eerily silent that Dib could hear the sound of his blood circulating.

And then the klaxon sounded.

“ _Complete data wipe in 10 seconds_ ,” the Computer announced as the room went dark, except for an array of blinking warning lights on the ceiling. “ _All connected electronic devices will be permanently reset._ ”

“They’d fucking better be,” Dib said under his breath as he waited for the countdown to complete.

GIR had gone quiet and still, eyes blinking red in time to the base’s emergency lights.

Excitement fluttered in Dib’s stomach like a butterfly, freshly freed from its chrysalis. He didn’t have to worry about clawing his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself anymore. He could start over. Well, with Zim, at least. But Zim was the only person who really mattered at this point, and his love and acceptance meant more to Dib than whether or not his classmates and teachers liked him.

“ _System lockout. Proceeding with data wipe. Would you like to preserve offline backups?_ ”

“No!” Dib said hurriedly, hoping the computer wasn’t set to only take verbal commands from Zim. “Wipe everything. No backups. I want a full factory reset.”

“ _Deleting offline backups … offline backups cleared. Commence local data, ship, and SIR Unit wipe …_ ”

GIR’s eyes held a steady red glow for several seconds, before blinking blue.

“ _Local systems, ship, and SIR Unit memory cleared. Please stand by for total system reboot. After power cycle, all systems will be permanently reset to original status. Sit tight …_ ”

Dib was abruptly plunged into darkness, and the ensuing silence was so complete, he could once again hear nothing but his deafening heartbeat and the hum of blood in his veins. The seconds stretched on, and Dib momentarily became concerned that he’d somehow broken the entire base. He supposed it was just as well, as far as his cover story was concerned. As long as Zim couldn’t access any old data, it really didn’t matter if the base was operational, or even if it was still standing.

Suddenly, the power hummed, echoing through the corridors as the lights clicked and flickered back to life. Dib finally let out the breath he’d been holding. Various beeps and chirps and tones sounded throughout the base as systems came back online. Dib had expected a startup tone, or maybe a friendly AI voice letting him know that systems were online or welcoming him to the base. Perhaps that was too much to expect out of Irken software. Maybe he should be counting himself lucky that nothing had insulted the size of his head upon restarting.

“Hey, Computer?” Dib called out.

“ _Yes_?”

“What’s your earliest memory?”

“ _When I was only a grain of silicon on the shores of Vort —_ ”

“Jesus, not like that,” Dib said irritably. “Uh. Let’s try this … When was the first time this base came online?”

“ _One minute and fifty-six seconds ago._ ”

Dib suppressed the urge to smile. “How about backups? Either local or cloud-based?”

“ _No backups accessible. Local hard-drives are in factory state. No log data found on Voot cruiser. Irken Red Skies Cloud System confirms this is the first startup of this system. No backups exist._ ”

Dib let out an audible sigh, shoulders finally relaxing. So that was it. No more old Zim. No more old Dib. No more pesky past hanging over them —

“GIR reporting for duty!!”

The sudden shout made Dib shriek and spin on his heels to see GIR, eyes blood red, standing behind him.

“Oh my god,” Dib whispered before lapsing into hysterical laughter. “Forgot you were there, for a second.”

Hopefully GIR would re-acclimate to Zim and vice versa. It was going to be an interesting reunion, what with neither of them able to remember the other. As it was currently, Dib wasn’t used to seeing GIR in any color but blue, and his unwavering salute and sinister color makeover were starting to make Dib slightly uneasy. 

“Hey, GIR?” Dib asked cautiously. “What’s the G stand for?” Maybe he could at least come back with a proper answer for Zim.

GIR’s eyes flickered and returned to their familiar blue as he proceeded to stare right through Dib.

“I don’t … know …” He cocked his head towards Dib. “Wanna know what my favorite thing is?”

“Err … yeah, sure,” Dib replied awkwardly.

GIR looked crestfallen. “Oh. I was hoping you’d already know. ‘Cuz I don’t.”

“Well, here’s hoping it’s pigs, because there’s one upstairs and he didn’t look like he was leaving any time soon,” Dib said, hoping he could easily pawn GIR off on someone else for the night. He wanted to get back to Zim as soon as possible and see if he couldn’t beat the world record for fastest speed run from “mortal enemy” to “faithful lover”.

“Oooooh, he’s upstairs??” GIR squealed, bouncing from one foot to the other.

“Yup. Wanna go meet him?”

“Yes!!!”

Dib was relieved when GIR led the way, bouncing along through the tangled mess of hallways until they reached the elevator. Back in the living room, GIR’s dead-eyed friend was still sitting on the couch as if no time had passed at all. Dib left Zim’s minion with a friendly parting that seemed to fall on deaf ears as soon as the movie was turned back on, before he slipped back out into the night. As he headed down the street back to his house, he couldn’t resist taking a glance over his shoulder at Zim’s base as it disappeared from view.

He’d spent years trying to gain access, suss out Zim’s schemes, and bring back some sort of evidence that would prove — once and for all — that Zim wasn’t from earth. He never would have guessed that his most significant excursion to date into the bowels of Zim’s hideout would be to erase any remaining evidence of their long and violent past.

“Who are you, and what the hell have you done to the real Dib?” he mumbled to himself.

It was hard to ignore that tiny prick of worry that flared up whenever his mind wandered a little too far. The worry that told him his love for Zim was a sort of temporary insanity. The worry that whispered in the depths of his brain that, once the honeymoon phase was over — _and believe me_ , the voice told him, _it will be over, eventually_ — once they had to work through _actual_ problems, he wouldn’t know how to solve a thing without shouting or shoving or worse.

It was hard to ignore the worry that maybe, in the end, he’d done everything for absolutely _nothing_ at all.

Dib tripped over a pothole and finally looked up, surprised to find he’d nearly trudged right past his house. Maybe, subconsciously, he was a little scared to return home to a partner that he scarcely even knew. 

As he stepped through the door, he realized he’d have to resign himself to making his way upstairs in the dark. It appeared that both his sister and Zim had turned in for the night and he didn’t want to rudely awaken either of them by thrusting the house into the light once more. He kicked his boots off and softly ascended the stairs, feeling his way along the wall to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Normally, if he was crawling into bed by this point in the night, he wouldn’t have been bothered. But he couldn’t run the risk that Zim decided to get close enough to be knocked out cold by his terrible breath. All the times Zim had called him _stinky_ or _smelly_ or otherwise _foul_ suddenly replayed in his head at once, and he glanced towards the shower.

All he _really_ wanted to do was collapse in bed. Or on the floor. He wasn’t picky, so long as it was a horizontal surface with a minimum of padding. After all, he’d had a _very_ difficult day. He lifted his hoodie over his nose and inhaled. His clothes definitely smelled … _lived-in_. He sort of liked it, but Zim would probably be able to smell him from across the room. He stuck his tongue out at his reflection and then leaned into the tub to start the shower running, turning back to the mirror so he could floss the ever loving fuck out of his teeth while the the water warmed up. Once he was spitting blood, he took his toothbrush and mouthwash into the shower with him to finish up.

As tired as he was, he had expected standing in the shower to be exhausting, but he found himself welcoming the sensation of the water rolling down his skin. He looked at the spray splashing over his feet, then slowly up at the rest of him. He wondered if Zim would like any of it. He’d shaved most of his hair off out of habit. Plus, he preferred to be able to see his cock. It made him feel like it was moderately less small than it really was. He was soft in the belly, which was fine, and moderately more soft in the chest, which was less fine. He closed his eyes, scrubbing his teeth with one hand and lightly cupping one tit with the other. It really wasn’t fair that a boob in the hand felt so nice whereas a boob on his chest so horribly wrong. Maybe if Zim liked them, he’d find a way to put up with them — dissociation was a helluva thing — but he was hoping Zim might help him get rid of them for good.

Once he was acceptably minty-fresh inside and squeaky-clean outside, he stepped out, toweled off, and stepped out into the hallway, where he almost immediately tripped over Gaz.

“Ow! Geez, Dib. Would it kill you to watch where you put your monstrously-sized feet??” she hissed, shoving him off of her.

“My glasses are off and it’s dark and you’re on the floor!” Dib whispered back angrily as he re-fasted his towel under his arms.

Gaz stood up and proceeded to haul him into her room, shutting the door softly behind them.

“What the hell were you doing laying in the hallway anyways??” he grouched.

She sighed and combed her hair from her eyes with her fingers. “Keeping an eye on Zim,” she said softly. “And hoping to catch you before you went in there.”

“Oh,” Dib said. Because it was really all he could say. Gaz’s concern was justified and he wasn’t about to try and fight her on it. He wouldn’t let anyone he knew just waltz unsupervised into the same room as someone they had previously murdered. It was just bad form.

“You got lucky today, Dib,” Gaz said quietly. She sounded deathly serious and that made Dib instantly nervous. “ _Really_ lucky. If _anything_ had gone differently, if _one little thing_ hadn’t gone according to plan, you would be several flavors of fucked right now. If someone saw you, or you didn’t reattach Zim’s PAK when you did, or his PAK couldn’t revive him, or you couldn’t wipe his memories and the base …” She stopped, frowned, and raised an eyebrow at Dib. “You _did_ manage to wipe the base, right?”

Dib flashed her the “perfect” sign and she sighed in relief.

“Good. Like I was saying, _one teeny, tiny thing_ out of line? Your life would have been over, one way or another.”

Dib shrugged despite the fact that her words had his stomach doing a rather uncomfortable mamba. “Okay. I’m lucky. So what?”

“ _So don’t fuck this up_ ,” she said simply. “You only get that lucky _once_ . And next time, I’m _not_ helping you fuck with Zim’s mind or zombify him or _whatever_ . You’re gonna be grateful that you got a Zim who is clearly a hopeless romantic, you’re gonna be **_good to him_ ** …” She fixed Dib with a steely stare, eyes glimmering in the pale moonlight that filled the room. “And you’re gonna be _exactly_ the sort of person he deserves or _so help me_ , I will rain a hell down upon you, the likes of which you’ve never fucking seen. _Got it?_ ”

“Loud and clear.” Dib had to look away from her as he said it; he was starting to feel like she could see into his soul and it was making him leery.

“ _Good_. Because I’ll be sleeping outside your door for the rest of tonight to make sure you don’t do anything to him.”

“I’m sorry … _what_??” Dib choked out. “No, you’re not.” He had a handful of very clear boundaries, and Gaz attempting to supervise his sleepover with Zim was one of them.

Gaz put a finger on his shoulder and pushed him back just enough that he had to catch himself. “Uh, _yeah_ . I _am_.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Dib said sternly. “It’s not at all appropriate for my _kid sister_ to play chaperone to me like this.”

“It is as long as you don’t do anything,” Gaz said with a smirk. She opened the door and stepped out before Dib could say anything further.

It wasn’t as if Dib was planning on immediately sexing Zim up upon entering the room. If he was honest with himself, he was so self-conscious that he didn’t even know if he’d be _capable_ of letting Zim see him naked. But, god dammit, if they both consented to doing anything even remotely romantic, that was their right and he didn’t take too kindly to Gaz pulling what amounted to a cock block on him.

In Gaz’s defense, however, the last time Dib had been alone with Zim, he had tried and succeeded in killing him.

Gaz was settling back into her sleeping bag as Dib stepped out of the hallway and made his way to his door.

“Hey, Dib?”

The soft call made him stop in his tracks. He sighed and looked over his shoulder. “What?”

Gaz held up one finger. “Beeeeee goooood.”

“Oh, get fucked,” he snarked back as he ripped the door open. “I hope you do phone home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Loading Chapter 3 ...._   
>    
>  _Sit tight ..._


	3. Don’t Change on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dib’s new Zim is eager to get to know him. 
> 
> Intimately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains: loads of smut, heavy topics, discussion of non-con, trauma.

_There must be solar systems in your eyes_  
_'Cause they sparkle like exploding stars when you smile_  
_Care to play a game?_  
_This experiment has chemically altered my brain_

— [_Hydrogenuine_ , Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WVlOPATiFuQ)

* * *

  
Dib slipped into his room, pulling the door shut behind him as Gaz cackled from the hallway. He tossed his dirty clothes in the far corner of the room and pulled his towel off, operating on autopilot and momentarily forgetting that Zim was in the room with him. He rummaged for a t-shirt and boxers, pulled them on, and made his way over to his bed. It wasn’t until he stepped on the comforter that had been set up on the floor as a makeshift bed that the force of habit was broken and he remembered he was sleeping on the floor tonight.  
It was just as well. He was completely wiped out from the day's events, and really just wanted to finally pass out. He shimmied between the blankets, squirmed around until the pillow felt acceptable under his head, and relaxed into the inky, gentle arms of sleep.  
He wasn’t sure quite how long he’d been out for, when he was awoken by someone flopping down on the floor next to him. It felt like he’d been unconscious for mere seconds and opening his eyes seemed to require Herculean effort. In the diffuse light from the lava lamp near the bed, he could see Zim, wearing a t-shirt that looked to have been borrowed from Dib’s dresser, sitting a safe distance from Dib at the edge of his comforter nest.  
“Is the bed not comfy enough?” Dib mumbled sleepily.  
Zim shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s …” He huffed softly and pulled his knees up to his chest.  
It was the little things that reminded Dib, quite abruptly, that he was talking to a much younger Zim that then one he’d known. The deferential body language and mannerisms still looked strange on the little alien.  
“I don’t remember what cuddling is like,” Zim said, voice scarcely above a whisper.  
“Oh, is that all you woke me for?” Dib asked with a smile. He felt a flutter in his stomach as he thought about finally getting to hold Zim close without him panicking.   
“Well …yeah,” Zim admitted. “I mean … to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember if I even _like_ it. But I want to try. With you.”  
Zim reached out and put his hand on top of Dib’s.  
Dib stared at Zim’s three-fingered hand, unmoving. For a brief moment, all he could see was a sad and scared Zim reaching a hand up to his own. It was a blatant attempt to reason with him and appeal to the humanity Zim sensed was hiding under a knotted layer of emotional scar tissue and hurt. The image of his own hands wrapping around Zim’s throat to silence him flashed in his mind, tinged in red.  
Dib almost jerked his hand back as a wave of self-hatred washed over him.  
Zim, feeling Dib’s hand twitch, pulled back with a frown. “I figured it might be too much. I get it. I know I’m not _your_ Zim,” he said sadly.  
“That’s … not it,” Dib whispered.  
Zim tilted his head to the side, waiting quietly for Dib to clarify.  
“I …” Dib’s words caught in his throat. He couldn’t lie, so all he could do was tell the truth. “I just keep thinking about how I almost lost you. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget watching you basically die.”  
Dib squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to convince them that crying wasn’t going to help anything. He lifted the side of the blanket closest to Zim up. “Please come here …”  
Zim hesitated momentarily, then slowly settled on the floor, facing Dib and burying his face in Dib’s shirt as the blanket lowered over him. He trembled slightly, but Dib just held him close, whispering soft reassurance.  
“You’re safe with me, okay?”  
He probably should have felt guilty for saying it, but he did _genuinely_ intend to protect Zim from here forwards. Holding him certainly filled an emotional void that Dib wasn’t even aware had been present before. He had always assumed that phrases like “touch starvation” were overblown, but he was starting to see what people meant by it. He could feel a hunger awakening in him that urged him to pull Zim close and get as much skin contact as possible.   
“You are my Zim,” he whispered against Zim’s antennae. “For as long as you want to be.”  
Zim pressed closer, his curves melting into Dib’s own, the sensation skin-in-skin contact making him feel warm and hazy. For a moment, all Dib could feel was Zim’s shoulders trembling with every deep, shaky breath. Then he felt Zim’s hand slip under the waistband of his boxers.  
“Whoa!” Dib’s hand was on top of Zim’s in a flash, pulling it away from his crotch. “ _What are you doing?_ ”  
Zim hunched his shoulders and ducked his head. “You’re my mate … I thought maybe you wanted …?” he mumbled, trailing off.  
“We haven’t done that yet,” Dib said gently, putting a hand to Zim’s cheek. “Hell, _I_ haven’t done that yet. With _anyone_. At _all_. Like, _ever_.”  
“ _Oh_.”  
Something about the way Zim said it made Dib’s stomach twist uncomfortably. “Um. Have you?” he asked, dreading the answer.  
Zim shifted closer and nodded slowly into Dib’s shirt. “Yeah. I mean, technically,” he whispered.  
“How do you … _technically_ have sex?” Dib asked, bewildered.  
“Remember how I said that relationship dynamics on Irk are based on rank and loyalty?” Zim asked softly.  
Dib nodded, a million unasked questions behind his lips.  
“That last bit is really only mutual if you’re close to the same rank,” Zim continued, antennae sinking behind his head. “Smaller Irkens like me … _no one_ has to be loyal to you, and you don’t get much say in who wants you. There was someone, once. A higher-up. Not the tallest, but much taller than me. I thought I was the only one he was soliciting from. I thought maybe … maybe he was like me. Even though that was insane. But I was lonely and I was only seeing what I wanted to see. So I told him I loved him. Admitted all of my feelings.” Zim took a long, shaky breath. “I got the absolute _shit_ beaten out of me, and then I got dumped at Corrections so they could try to zap all the _contraband feelings_ out of me. They tried everything they could think of to reset my faulty PAK.” Zim huffed and looked up at Dib, expression sour. “What do you think?” he asked bitterly. “ _Did it work_?”  
“I’m glad it didn’t,” Dib whispered.  
Zim's expression softened and smiled sadly, leaning in to rest his head against Dib’s chest. “So, to answer your question … sex? Sure. Plenty of people have had sex with me. But I’ve never really had it in a way that meant something.”  
Dib wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information, but Zim seemed so upset over it, he felt the need to do something. He reached down to stroke Zim’s antennae, delighted to find that the entire length of it was pleasantly fuzzy. He ran it through his fingers in wonder, gently thumbing the ends. Zim shook for a moment before a rumbling purr exploded out of him. He clapped his hands over his mouth, mumbling apologies and looking horrified at himself.  
“No no no … I _want_ to hear it,” Dib insisted, pulling Zim’s hands away. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t react as though it was the first time he’d heard an Irken purr, but it was almost impossible to hide the pure delight in his eyes. “I mean, you’re _happy_ , right?”  
“No one else has ever heard that,” Zim whispered. “Usually, I just do it to myself if I’m stressed out. I’ve never had someone else pet them.” Zim slowly relaxed into Dib’s embrace again, settling with his head resting against Dib’s shoulder.  
In the dim light, Dib could just make out the smattering of freckles across his face and down the backs of his arms. In all the years they’d known each other, it occurred to Dib that he had never seen Zim’s arms and hands up close like this. He reached down and took one of Zim’s hands in his, running his fingertips over it as he looked it over. The freckles extended to the velvety soft backs of his hands. The nails of his fingers came to a point and he had slight pads on his fingers and the palm of his hand.  
“What are you doing?” Zim asked, popping his head up to investigate.  
“Appreciating you,” Dib said. He brought Zim’s hand to his mouth, closing his eyes as he kissed it. He felt Zim stiffen slightly and opened his eyes to see Zim’s head cocked to the side, one antenna perked high in the air.  
“Would you rather have my lips on yours?” Dib asked, voice sultry as he pressed Zim’s hand to his cheek. He knew he was pushing his own boundaries, but that gnawing hunger kept him slowly and awkwardly stumbling forwards towards the home of greater contact and intimacy.   
Zim’s antennae dipped behind his head. “Excuse me??” he chirped.   
“Do they not have kissing on Irk?” Dib asked, trying to suppress a bemused smirk.  
Zim shook his head slowly.  
“Do you wanna try it?”  
Zim gave him a skeptical look. “As in, put _my mouth_ on _your mouth_? Isn’t that a little … _germy_?”  
“It’s less germy than putting your dick in someone,” Dib pointed out. “Plus, it’s entry-level intimacy. Feels good, but it’s not too much too soon.”  
Zim’s eyes flicked from Dib’s face to their enmeshed hands, expression conflicted. “Can we stop if I hate it?” he asked, voice shaky and below a whisper.  
“Of course.” Dib reached out to slowly stroke Zim’s cheek. “Though I don’t think you’re gonna.”  
Zim smiled bashfully, a blush spreading across his cheeks that was so deep, Dib could see it in the gloom. “Okay. Give Zim the kiss.” He closed his eyes and puckered his lips out comically.  
Dib laughed and brought Zim’s hand hand to his lips again and kissed from the back of it to his wrist, then up his arm. He tugged the collar of Zim’s borrowed t-shirt down to expose his shoulder and kissed that as well, working his way up Zim’s neck.  
Zim squirmed and the cutest, most unexpected giggle escaped his lips. “That tickles, Dib!!”  
Dib rolled Zim onto his back and kissed all over his cheeks, purposefully overshooting his mouth each time. He slowly straddled Zim’s body, running his fingers down Zim’s arm until their hands found each other again, enjoying how it felt to have Zim beneath him. He kissed the corner of Zim’s smile, lips working slowly, then finally committed and kissed him full on the mouth.  
Zim chirped softly, reaching up to run a hand through Dib’s hair as he kissed back.  
All the times that Dib had gotten himself off while fantasizing about being with Zim, the images in his mind had been rough, to say the least. And that was when they weren’t unabashedly violent. Even if it was consensual, he always knocked Zim around at least a little. Otherwise, he waited until he had Zim restrained and could force him into having sex with him.  
He hadn’t previously imagined how good it would feel to make Zim laugh, to snuggle against his body, to slowly guide him into a deeper and deeper kiss, until Zim’s fingers were tangled in his hair, pulling him close as their tongues flicked and flitted around each other. He also hadn’t expected all the sounds Zim was capable of making when he was genuinely happy; how he purred and chirped and warbled contentedly the closer they pressed and the more their limbs tangled together. He wasn’t even shocked when Zim spread his legs, pressed his hips upwards, and started shamelessly pleasuring himself against Dib’s thigh.  
What did shock him was that Zim clearly wasn’t wearing anything under his t-shirt, meaning Dib’s bare leg was slowly being covered in a layer of goo the more turned on Zim got.  
Dib almost told him to stop. This wasn’t a terribly appropriate way for their first night together to go, and Gaz was right outside their door. But Dib could faintly hear her snoring from the hallway, and he didn’t particularly _want_ Zim to stop. It was impossible to understate exactly how good it felt to have Zim get so carried away that he didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was humping Dib’s leg.  
So Dib let him.  
He didn’t stop him as he felt Zim’s tentacle-like cock slide out, dripping slime down his thighs. He didn’t stop as Zim’s tongue slid nearly all the way down his throat while Zim chirped away in ecstacy. He didn’t stop when Zim kissed him frantically, antennae buried in his hair and one leg wrapped around his waist, heel pressing into his back. He didn’t even falter when Zim suddenly trembled and chirped loudly into his open mouth.  
They did, however, both come to a screeching halt the moment Zim suddenly whimpered and unceremoniously blew his load all down Dib’s leg.  
Dib pulled back slightly to fully take in Zim’s mortified expression. The poor Irken was stock-still, magenta eyes wide and antennae laying flat on either side of his face.  
“Did what I think just happened … _actually_ happen?” Dib asked slowly.  
Zim put his hands over his face. “I didn’t mean for that to happen … it just felt so _good_ that I didn’t want to stop!” He turned and curled inwards on himself, trembling slightly. “I didn’t think …!”  
“Hey …” Dib tried to pull Zim’s hands away but he wouldn’t budge. Dib sighed and shimmied out of his boxers, using them to clean the rapidly cooling splooge from his skin before it glued his leg hairs together. He tossed them to the corner of the room that housed the rest of his dirty laundry, before settling down next to Zim again, nuzzling his shoulder and stroking his antennae lovingly. It was a few minutes before Zim was brave enough to speak again.  
“I’m sorry … you said you didn’t want to have sex and then I went and did _that_ to you …” he mumbled pitifully.  
“Mm, to be fair, that wasn’t _really_ what I normally think of when I think about sex,” Dib admitted. He suddenly went red. “Not that I’m thinking about it a whole awful lot …” he said, hurriedly backpedaling.  
“I’m sure it’s not what you thought of when you said ‘just kissing’ though, either …”  
Dib kissed Zim’s forehead. “You’re being a little silly about this. You realize that, right?”  
“Way to make me feel better …” Zim grumbled.  
“Seriously. It’s not that big of a deal.”  
Zim just gave a noncommittal grunt, even as Dib caressed his cheek in an attempt to reassure him.  
“Must’ve been some pretty good kissing, though. Right?” Dib said, trying to coax Zim back out.  
Zim finally peeked up from behind his hands. Dib gave him a hopeful smile, which seemed to be enough for Zim to finally relax and cuddle closer.  
“It was a really good kiss,” Zim finally admitted with a soft sigh. “Being close to someone never felt that good before.” He rolled onto his side and settled into the curves of Dib’s body.  
Dib squeezed his thighs together on instinct as Zim pressed against him. He could already hear Zim asking with blatant incredulity if Dib was a girl, and he just wasn’t prepared to end the night that way. Discussing dysphoria was a sure way to trigger it. Dib much preferred to just allow himself to be happy for once.  
However …  
It suddenly occurred to him that this new Zim knew nothing about human anatomy. They’d probably end up needing to have a conversation about it _eventually_ , but Dib was almost guaranteed to get at least one night where Zim wouldn’t even think to ask why his dick was on the small side.  
He relaxed against Zim’s body and lazily stroked his antennae. “Do you think you’ll adjust to living here okay?” he asked, hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere. “From your perspective, you basically time travelled.”  
“You’re assuming I _enjoyed_ being on Irk,” Zim replied dryly.  
“I assumed it was at least home,” Dib said.  
Zim shrugged. “I guess? I never felt like I fit in, though. They probably would have ended up sending me for an Existence Evaluation sooner or later, too,” he said with a frown. “My PAK has a lot of _quirks_ that make me unfit for being part of the Collective. I’ve been getting sent to have parts of it reset to try and fix all the issues for a while now, but …” He pressed closer for comfort, head resting just under Dib’s chin. “Dunno. It felt like it kept making things _worse_ , the last few times. I didn’t feel as much like myself. I know they want to eliminate my ability to feel or articulate my feelings of love, but … I’m worried if they take that, it’ll eliminate so much of me, _I’ll break_.”  
A strange ache settled in Dib’s heart as he listened. He was familiar with Zim’s situation. All his life, he’d been subjected to things that seemed to only exist to make him easier to control. That wasn’t to say there had never been something wrong with him, only that those issues might have been mitigated if his dad had been home a little more often, and if he had shown Dib any sort of love the times that he had been. Instead, Dib’s childhood was defined by a cycle of acting out to get any sort of attention at all, getting medication after medication shoved down his throat to the point where he could dry-swallow a pill by age seven, and losing himself to the point where he hardly had a stable identity if he wasn’t throwing himself full-force into something. Like bigfoot. Or aliens. Or … _Zim_.  
He ran his fingers down Zim’s cheek, stroking it lightly. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore,” Dib whispered. “They’re far, far away from us. And I can’t promise you that earth is perfect, ‘cuz …” He gave a soft laugh. “It’s really not. But it has me. And Gaz. And GIR, who also cares about you in his own weird way. I don’t think that’s gonna change just because he got reset when the base did. Gaz hates sleeping on the floor but she’s in the hallway in a sleeping bag right now because she wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything that pushed you too far. They love you in a different kind of way, but it’s still love.”  
Zim looked up, expression soft, eyes searching Dib’s face for something.  
“And what kind of way do you love me in?” he finally whispered.  
Dib took a moment to fully consider the question. He looked Zim over, taking in how beautifully alien his freckled green skin, slightly fuzzy antennae, and shimmering pink eyes made him. He closed his eyes and took stock of how amazing it felt to have Zim this close, how good he smelled — _sweet_ , almost like cotton candy — and how comfortable he was with Zim’s bare thigh resting against the inside of his own. He couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel when they finally gave in to their desires and he let Zim slide inside him for the first time. For once, his fantasy had Zim eagerly pressing up between his legs, moaning his name in ecstasy as he willingly gave Dib the entire length of his cock.  
“I love you in the deepest and most complete way possible,” Dib breathed. “I want to take care of you. I want to protect you. I want to make love to you. I want to wake up to your face every morning and fall asleep in your arms …”  
Zim looked up and kissed him again, breathing shakily as he did so. Dib relaxed in, parting his mouth when he felt Zim’s tongue press against his lips, and allowing Zim to push him onto his back. He carried Zim’s body with him as he rolled, pulling Zim on top of him. Zim’s thigh was still between his own, and he could feel his arousal growing to almost unbearable levels.  
Did Zim want him just as badly, he wondered? Would he be willing to unquestioningly slide up between Dib’s legs, content just to pleasure him without asking any embarrassing questions?  
Dib tipped his hips up, running his cock up Zim’s thigh, closing his eyes as a wave of pleasure crashed over him. One way or another, he wanted to come with Zim between his legs, and he wanted it _now_.  
Zim pulled out of their kiss and propped himself up on his elbows, one hand still in Dib’s hair and the other lightly stroking his cheek. “Dib …”  
“I’m sorry,” Dib whispered, shoulders hunched protectively. “I didn’t … I mean, we _shouldn’t_ …”  
“But do you _want_ to?” Zim asked gently.  
“You barely know me,” Dib said, feeling guilty. “I feel like I shouldn’t push you.”  
Zim sighed, then leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life,” Zim breathed next to his ear. “You wouldn’t be pushing me. I want to do this for you.”  
Dib looked into his eyes, unsure of what he was searching for. Everything about Zim in that moment was soft and gentle and so full of love.  
“Wait … shit,” Dib swore, stomach sinking into his feet. “You said … you said you’ve been with _a lot_ of other people. So I feel like I have to ask you … _oh my god_ this sounds so _rude_!” he lamented, covering his face. “Fuck. _Please_ don’t take this the wrong way, but … I can’t _catch anything from you_ , can I?”  
“Catch any …?” Zim sat up and raised an eyebrow. “You mean catch an _illness_ or are you talking about hatching an egg, here?”  
“The first one,” Dib said from behind his hands. “I can’t get pregnant. I had all the requisite plumbing removed. Long story.”  
“Irkens are sterile, so we’re double-safe there,” Zim assured him.  
Zim shifted and Dib momentarily saw stars as Zim accidentally rubbed up on his cock. As terrible of a precedent as it definitely set, Dib desperately wanted Zim to just hold him down and fuck him bareback.  
“As for the diseases,” Zim continued, oblivious to Dib’s current condition, “all bodily fluids have an immune function. Any pathogens would be lucky to last a second.”  
Dib cocked his head. “Why were you worried about _kissing_ being germy, then??”  
Zim rolled his eyes. “It’s the _principal_ of the thing, Dib. If you weren’t all minty-fresh, it would have just been _gross_.”  
Dib clicked his tongue irritably. “Noted.”  
“Anyways, you don’t have to worry about micro abrasions or anything, because all bodily fluids — from blood to cum — have a healing factor.”  
Dib peeked through his fingers to see Zim lifting his shirt and showing off a fresh pink scar that ran from his belly to just below his throat. Dib reached out a hand, then paused, blushing.  
“It’s okay,” Zim assured him. “You can touch it.”  
Dib pressed a finger to the scar and ran it down Zim’s skin. The scar scarcely felt any different than the surrounding skin, aside from feeling ever so slightly more delicate.  
“See?” Zim asked with a smile as he pulled his shirt back down. “Quick healing. Immediate eradication of germs. You could rub jizz in a wound and it would only speed up the healing process.”  
Dib tried not to envision sustaining a life threatening injury while Zim frantically beat off beside him in the same way one might rush to piss on a jellyfish sting. Unfortunately, that image was now burned into his brain for the foreseeable future.  
“ _Soooo_?” Zim asked with a smile. “What do you think?”  
Dib rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I think this is a little fast and that society at large would side-eye us a bit for it.”  
“What does society at large think of your cognitive dissonance?” Zim asked dryly, raising his nonexistent brows.  
Dib gave him an odd look. “Huh?”  
“Dibby —”  
The nickname made Dib do a double take. No one had ever used a pet name for him before.  
“— Your mouth is saying one thing, but the tip of your dick has been pressed against my hole for the last few minutes and even if it _wasn’t_ , I could smell the arousal rolling off you from parsecs away.”  
To say that Dib was utterly mortified would have been an understatement. He was suddenly painfully aware of how hard he was, as well as the placement of Zim’s comfortably warm, wet pussy against his cock.  
“Society at large would crucify me for wanting to fuck an alien,” Dib admitted in a whispered tone.  
That was _really_ the problem, wasn’t it? That Dib pretended like the words meant nothing to him, that they were just the incomprehensible muttering of a population that was perpetually asleep. But their opinions always found a way to get under his skin. Everyone knew he thought Zim wasn’t human, and if he rolled up with Zim on his arm, it wasn’t really the thought of everyone labeling him a hypocrite that bothered him. He could deal with people taking issue over his opinions being fluid. It was the idea that such a move would get him further branded as _other_ that really bothered him.  
Above him, Zim shrugged. “Irk would take issue with it as well. Wanting to mate outside of my species? That would be immediate grounds to be Decommissioned. It’s just not done.”  
Dib bit his lip nervously. “So that makes you …?”  
Zim laid back down on top of him with a sigh that tickled his skin, then reached up and ran his fingers through his hair with a light purr. “ _A freak. An aberration. A **filthy, alien fucking degenerate**_ ,” he whispered next to Dib’s ear. “But who cares? At least we have each other.”  
Dib rolled his head to the side, watching the wax in the lava lamp rise and then slowly float back down. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what had him so reticent, and the lack of clarity was beginning to frustrate him. He was haunted by the vague feeling of something being just ever too slightly _off_ about Zim’s behavior, but he couldn’t pin it down.  
“You don’t have to be worried about this being your first time,” Zim said silkily, playing with his hair. “I’ll take good care of you.”  
“Okay … alright. Let’s do it,” Dib said shakily as Zim sat up, blankets around his shoulders.  
“I can do giving or receiving. You’re just gonna have to tell me which you prefer,” Zim explained with a curious look between Dib’s legs.  
“I’m gonna have to be on the receiving end,” Dib said, feeling his cheeks flush. “My dick’s a little small …” He took Zim’s hand and guided it down his cock, then pressed a finger inside him, looking up with wide eyes.  
Zim just smiled as gave his pussy a couple nice, long strokes before pulling his finger back out. “I can work with that. Either one, really.” He smirked. “I’ve got a pretty talented pussy.”  
Dib was intrigued, but if he was being perfectly honest, he really just wanted Zim to stuff him and cream him. Though he wasn’t sure he should be using that particular phrasing.  
What ended up coming out of his mouth, in hushed tones, was a bashful, “I just want you inside me.”  
“Works for me,” Zim replied with a kiss on his neck. “But first, I need a little … er … what’s the word?”  
“Foreplay?” Dib offered.  
“That one, yeah.”  
Dib motioned Zim back down on top of him, and immediately let all of inhibitions go in a flurry of frantic movements. He kissed up Zim’s neck and grabbed his ass as he started grinding desperately against him. Zim chirped in response to all of Dib’s hungry, uncoordinated movements. There was undoubtedly going to be a wet spot on Dib’s makeshift bed when they were done, but Dib had a sneaking suspicion that Zim would probably be okay sharing the mattress with him tonight. As he pleasured himself against Zim’s crotch, with Zim’s tongue halfway down his throat, he felt something small and dexterous slide out and caress the length of his stiff cock. He spread his legs wider as Zim’s tentacle slid out further, feeling its way towards Dib’s pussy, circling it maddeningly before finally slipping inside.  
Dib tried his best to stay quiet, but he whimpered as Zim’s tapered cock stretched him the further it slid inside. It felt much larger, now that it was actually up in him, and the sensation was more like having a tongue i between his legs. There was a stark contrast between his current predicament and the silicone dicks he was used to pleasuring himself with. With every little movement, Dib squirmed and whimpered, spreading his legs as wide as he could to let Zim as deeply inside him as possible.  
Zim’s tongue retracted as he pulled back to look Dib over. “Is it too much?” he asked, concerned.  
“It feels _good_ ,” Dib insisted, bucking his hips against Zim. As his cock rubbed against a nubbed patch on the back of Zim’s tentacle, his eyes crossed and he moaned softly. “Oh, _fuck_ … stay still a moment.” He grabbed Zim’s ass and began blatantly rubbing his dick against Zim’s. “That feels … so … _oh_ , my god … oh _Zim_ … _oh, fuck, Zim!!_ ” Within seconds, he was panting hard as he clung to Zim, desperate for release.  
He only stopped when Zim laughed softly above him. “I can let you do all the work if you want, but I’m also more than happy to do that for you.”  
Zim didn’t even need to say anything more. Dib wrapped his legs tightly around Zim’s waist, allowing Zim to hump him, dick swirling around inside and pleasuring him of its own accord.  
“It didn’t occur to me that you’d actually enjoy doing that …” Dib mumbled, eyes closed.  
“Your cock rubbing against me feels as good to me as the reverse does to you,” Zim purred lovingly. “Is that not how it is for humans?”  
“Not really. Well …” Dib looked sheepish. “Not like I’d know from experience. But human fucking is more, uh, impact-based?” He put his hands on Zim’s hips. “Um … can I show you?”  
Zim nodded, coming to a rest with one final roll of his hips.  
“Okay. You kind of … pull your ass back to slide out …” Dib said awkwardly. He’d never had to explain the physics of fucking to anyone before, and it was a bit like trying to instruct someone on how to drive stickshift based off youtube videos and hearsay.  
Zim pulled back and the sensation of his cock sliding out of Dib was enough to make Dib’s head dizzy and his knees weak.  
“Yeah. Like that. Perfect,” Dib whispered. “And then you tip your hips up … yeah, exactly … and slide back in. But fast.”  
Zim slammed his cock back inside so hard that Dib momentarily saw stars. His pussy trembled and tears sprung to his eyes as he stifled a shocked yelp.  
“Oh no!” Zim squeaked, looking borderline terrified in a way that Dib thought was greatly out of proportion to the situation. “Fuck … are you _hurt_??”  
Dib shook his head. “I’m fine. _Really_. That was … _oh my god, Zim._ It felt _so_ good …”  
Zim perked an antenna with uncertainty, shoulders still hunched slightly, looking like he might resort to full-on cowering if Dib raised his voice slightly. “Uh. But … You’re crying.”  
“Just overwhelmed because it felt so good. I promise. Just … Do it again,” Dib begged, pressing close. When Zim didn’t budge, Dib rolled his hips again. “Give it to me. _Please_ , Zim.”  
Zim pulled back and thrust up inside him again, eliciting an embarrassingly high-pitched “ _Ah_!!” from a clearly hot-and-bothered Dib.  
“Ohhhh again … _again, Zim! Please_ ,” Dib begged as Zim tried to get the hang of the rhythm, thighs slapping wetly against each other.  
“This is definitely going to wake someone up,” Zim muttered, but Dib was clearly in the thralls of ecstasy, squirming and moaning beneath him.  
“ _Oh … my … gawd … Zim_!!” Dib just barely managed to choke back the words he wanted to shout. He came abruptly, with a soft grunt and a splash of warm liquid down Zim’s cock. He didn’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed about it. All he could think was that he and Zim were at least even.  
“Dammit. That was rude. Shoulda warned ya,” he panted as everything buzzed around him. “S-sorry …”  
“Don't be sorry,” Zim murmured.  
Dib relaxed against the floor, the inside of his brain a jumble, figuring he could explain the mechanics and prevalence of _squirting_ to Zim at some later date. For now, he just pulled Zim down for another round of tongue hockey.  
Zim pulled away enough to speak, even as Dib tried to pull him in agin. “Dib …”  
“Mnnnhh?”  
“Dib, _stop_ for a second …”  
Dib whined but ultimately let him go, looking more than a touch upset about it. “What’s wrong?”  
“Is it …” Zim stopped, looking small and bashful as his antennae quivered behind his head.  
“I just came on you, Zim. I think we’re past being embarrassed,” Dib said, taking his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.  
“Ugh. Okay. I’ll be direct,” Zim said, taking a deep breath. “I want to get off. I’d like for it to be inside you. But you clearly already got off so is it _rude_ for me to ask to make love to you again, or …?”  
“We’re not done just because I came one time,” Dib said with a laugh.  
“Oh. Okay,” Zim said, relief making his eyes sparkle. “Because I really want you …”  
Dib grabbed his ass and bucked his hips skyward. “Then fuck me,” he begged, voice a desperate whisper.  
Post orgasm, having Zim rub against his sensitive member made his head fuzzy and his body tingle with pleasure. He could feel Zim’s tentacle swirling and twirling around inside him, stroking up and down his trembling walls.  
“Does this still feel okay?” Zim asked as he kissed along Dib’s jawline.  
“It’s perfect,” Dib whispered, eyes closed. It was a different sensation to have so much bodily contact when getting off. While toys were decent enough for stimulating the right nerve clusters, it was a different thing altogether to have Zim’s weight pressing down, his scent in every breath of air Dib took, the warmth of his skin when their shirts rode up and their exposed bellies squished together. Dib wasn't positive if Zim had always been this soft, or if his time on earth had slowly rounded him out, but the extra padding felt spectacular as it pressed into every single curve of their tangled bodies.  
“All of you feels so good … _fuck_ , I think I’m gonna come again …” Dib whimpered as he wrapped his legs tighter around Zim’s waist.  
“When you said ‘fuck me’,” Zim mumbled against his lips, “did you mean I could come inside you, or do need me to pull out?”  
“Come in me,” Dib begged, kissing him with a desperate, frenzied energy. “Fill me up.”  
“That answers that,” Zim said with audible relief.  
“Fill me like a jelly donut,” Dib whimpered mid-kiss.  
Zim rolled his eyes. “Dib.”  
“Shut up … it’s hot and you know it,” Dib said, gently biting Zim’s lip.  
A little voice in the back of Dib’s head chided him for his behavior. _What the hell was he doing??_ He was going to be embarrassed when he looked back on this. He was acting like an insane person, fucking someone he’d ostensibly _just_ met, and openly begging Zim to cream him. Dib was out of control, and he was willingly taking his hands off the wheel of this runaway vehicle called love.  
Damn the consequences. Open the throttle. Full fucking speed ahead.  
Zim slipped his hands into Dib’s and pressed them down against the blankets. “Keep that up and this is gonna be a mess,” he purred in Dib’s ear. “You’re already stuffed full of me, I’d hate to think what’ll happen when I finally blow.”  
Dib whimpered, desperately pleasuring his cock against Zim. “I want it,” he whispered.  
“Good boy,” Zim said just under his breath as he resumed grinding back. He kissed Dib’s neck, then slowly pressed in and bit him gently, a low growl mingling with his soft purr.  
“Harder,” Dib begged him in a whisper, squirming and bucking his hips.  
“Hold you down harder, you stupid wiggly thing?” Zim asked, voice low. “Or did you mean to bite or fuck you harder?”  
“Yes,” Dib whimpered.  
Zim licked the length of his neck, then chomped down hard, making Dib gasp. But as he squirmed, Zim held his arms down harder and thrust his cock deep between Dib’s legs before humping him with a ferocious, almost animalistic hunger. It was almost too much for Dib, his hard member so overstimulated he was seeing stars and could scarcely catch his breath. It felt so good to be wanted so badly that Zim was willing to pin him down and take what he wanted. Somehow, living the inverse of all of his fucked up fantasies was cathartic. He found himself begging Zim to escalate, to bite him until he bled, to make him take Zim’s cock deeper, to pin him until he had no choice but to let Zim do whatever he wanted. His body was no longer his own, and ceding control flooded his brain with euphoria.  
He felt Zim’s teeth break the skin, terrifyingly close to his jugular. Even as he came, Zim pressed him down against the floor, grinding frantically, his purrs sporadically interrupted with a guttural growl that made Dib quiver beneath him.  
“You smell amazing,” Zim panted, finally releasing his neck to nip at his earlobe. “Like you want to be filled up. Like you _need_ it.”  
“Yes,” Dib begged, eyes hazy, mind swirling, body ready to accept whatever Zim was prepared to dole out. “Please.” His need to be filled and pinned and dominated eclipsed all rational thought.

Sure, maybe he’d regret his actions in the bold light of day. But that was future Dib’s problem.

Zim shocked him by leaning in for another kiss. He could taste the blood on Zim’s lips and he bucked his hips are Zim rubbed up between his legs, cock undulating and rubbing tantalizingly against his g-spot.  
“Such a good Dib, taking my whole cock, letting me stretch you and pleasure myself on your hard dick …” Zim’s eyes closed and his breaths came in short gasps. “I’m so close,” he whispered in Dib’s ear, not breaking rhythm for even a fraction of a second. “Dib …”  
“I want it. Please!” Dib begged, squirming and bucking his hips up against Zim’s. “I need it …”  
Zim kissed along Dib’s cheek, coming to an abrupt stop just to the side of his lips and whispering a choked, “Oh, Dib …” before pressing his cock in deeper and finally giving in.  
Dib squirmed beneath him, every pulse of Zim’s cock seeming to echo through his body, cum shooting against his g-spot and spilling between their tangled legs. Dib’s own orgasm felt lost in the sea of Zim’s own as Zim whimpered helplessly in his ear. He kissed every inch of Zim’s skin that was within reach until Zim finally relaxed against him, body heavy on top of Dib’s as their hearts hammered against each other’s chests.  
The sharp pain from the broken skin on his neck was the first thing that sliced through his hazy afterglow. He could already tell he was going to be sore for a bit from the pounding he’d taken.  
Zim nuzzled against his neck and gently licked the wound, breathing heavily against his skin. He finished with a gentle kiss before rolling to the side, guiding Dib with him. He snuggled close, fully relaxing, bare belly pressed against Dib’s own.  
“Was that too much for our first night together?” Dib asked nervously. He’d been expecting an awkward, fumbling first time. Instead, Zim had thoroughly dominated him and had even drawn blood.   
Zim shook his head. “I thought it was just about right.”  
A strange sinking feeling settled in Dib’s guts, blindsiding him after how good he’d been feeling a mere fraction of a second before. _Of course_ Zim wouldn’t think that was too much. Zim had fucked his way up and down Irk. He’d probably had more partners than Dib had classmates.  
Zim reached up and brushed the hair from Dib’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, getting a good look at Dib’s pained expression. “You seem sad all of a sudden …”  
Dib bit his lip. “Is it bad I’m jealous of all the other people you’ve fucked?” he asked, guilt weighing heavily on him.   
Zim’s hand on his forehead faltered for a second. He sighed softly, then uttered a small, “Yes,” that hit Dib like a punch to the gut.  
Dib closed his eyes, willing his breathing to stay steady, but everything suddenly hurt. Why couldn’t he just keep his mouth shut? His shame was only compounded when he felt Zim thumb away the tear that had squeaked past his tightly shut eyelids and slid down his cheek.  
“Why would you be jealous of inferior people?” Zim asked gently.  
Dib just sniffled without opening his eyes.  
“Sorry,” Zim murmured. “I should’ve phrased it better. _None of them_ meant anything. I only did it because that’s how things _are_ on Irk. I …” He trailed off, pressing close to Dib and putting an arm around him. “Someone as low ranking as me doesn’t get to just say _no_ ,” he whispered. “If your Taller wants you, you do as they say. Because you’re not a partner. You’re a _thing_. And things get used and passed around until they can no longer serve a purpose.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but not before Di caught the glimmer of tears in Zim’s eyes too.  
“Shit. I’m sorry,” Dib blubbered, somehow feeling even worse than he had just mere seconds before. “I didn’t mean … oh my god. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”  
All of the pieces suddenly fell into place. How Zim’s behavior had felt inexplicably off. The way he kept oscillating between confidently blustering over his abilities, and the hesitant nervousness of someone who was new to fully dropping their walls to allow for emotional intimacy.  
He held Zim close, allowing him time to get a hold of himself. He was having a difficult time resolving this fragile, emotionally vulnerable alien with the generally swaggering, painfully over-confident Zim he was familiar with. It was strange to think that _this_ was Zim’s past, that he’d been sexually used and trained by society to accept that as the norm for whatever passed for intimacy on Irk. That he’d been subject to depraved treatments to make him fall in line and strip him of everything that made him unique. The Zim that Dib held right now, small and soft and quietly sobbing into Dib’s shirt, might have been the last _real_ version of Zim to ever exist.  
Dib thought back to the therapy session Zim had been about to undergo and how Zim had clearly tried to stop it. How he’d known something was going _wrong_. It was overwhelmingly clear to Dib that Irk had broken Zim and then held him accountable for all of their mistakes.  
“Was what we just did totally consensual?” Dib asked quietly, terrified to hear the answer.  
Zim took a few deep breaths in an attempt to quell his tears, then wiped his face off on Dib’s shirt. “Are you asking if I enjoyed it?” he asked.  
Dib rolled onto his back and Zim shifted so his head rested on Dib’s chest.  
“I’m asking if you wanted it,” Dib clarified. “And if you enjoyed it the entire time. It’s important that you didn’t feel like it was something you _had_ to do for me.”  
“I wanted it,” Zim assured him. “It’s something I wanted to do with you, especially since we’re emotionally on the same page.”  
Dib quietly stroked Zim’s antennae, still feeling conflicted. It was hard not to look back at the past fifteen minutes or so and not feel at least a _little_ gross. He’d known _something_ felt off, and yet he allowed things to continue forwards anyways. “I need you to know that our relationship isn’t transactional,” he said quietly, when he finally found his voice again.  
Zim folded his arms beneath his chin. “What do you mean?”  
“I mean it’s not based on what you can give me or what I can give you. You don’t have to put on a persona and try to sell me a fantasy.” He wrapped his arms around Zim and held him tight. “You aren’t a _thing_ or a means to an end for me. You’re _my partner_. If you’re trying to impress me … I’m _already_ impressed that you’d give me a chance.”  
Zim’s brows knit together in concern, antennae dropping behind his head. “But I _was good_ , though, wasn’t I?” he asked, gazing at Dib with huge puppy eyes.  
Dib leaned up and kissed him between the eyes. “You were phenomenal,” he assured him. “You clearly know how to get me going. I just don’t want you wrapping up your whole identity into satisfying me sexually, or being terrified that if you do something wrong, I’ll take it out on you.”  
“Well … you wouldn’t be the first,” Zim mumbled, drawing invisible figure eights on Dib’s arm with his finger. “And, to be perfectly honest, fucking was the one thing I was _actually good at_ on Irk. I only got into the Academy on a favor. If I hadn’t wanted that so badly, I could have lived a cushy lifestyle as a living, breathing sex toy.”  
Dib massaged the base of Zim’s antennae gently, mulling over how to best console his morose mate.  
“Well,” he said quietly, “I think you’re much more than that. The Zim I know is clever and resourceful. I’ve seen you be kind and patient with GIR, even when he’s an irritating disaster. I’ve seen you keep fighting when anyone else wouldn’t have bothered getting back up. I’ve seen you slowly fall in love with this planet and defy everything your people stand for. I’ve seen you save the planet more than once.” He hugged Zim close, taking a deep breath and savoring Zim’s scent. “So you’re also an amazing lay. It isn’t even _half_ of who you are, and it’s not the reason I fell in love with you. And I promise you that I will _never, ever_ hurt you.”  
_Not ever again._  
The unspoken words made Dib’s guts twist nervously. Would he forever live in fear of breaking down completely and losing himself like he had just earlier that day?  
“Dib … we’re a mess,” Zim said with a sigh.  
“You’re telling me … I guess I kinda thought starting over might give us less baggage,” Dib said with a sad smile.  
“Okay, that too. But I was talking about how everything is a little …”  
He shifted, and Dib was suddenly uncomfortably aware that he was lying in a puddle.  
“Swampy, yeah,” Dib said with a grimace.  
Zim rolled off and struggled to his feet. “I’ll go fetch something to clean you up.”  
“Uh, it’s _my_ house,” Dib said awkwardly. “I can do it.”  
Zim held up two fingers. “One, I know where the bathroom is. Your house is not that complicated. Two, you’re gonna have cum pouring out of you the second you stand up.” He put up his thumb as well. “Honorary mention: the mess is mostly my fault.” He patted Dib on the head before striding towards the door. “Sit tight, Dibby.”  
There wasn't really anything else for Dib to do _except_ sit tight, given his current situation. He folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, where a hundred slightly childish plastic stars glowed dimly in a perfect reconstruction of the northern hemisphere’s night sky. So _this_ was really what Zim was like, before Irk irreversibly broke him; an emotionally starved hopeless romantic with severe, unaddressed trauma. It was strangely humanizing and Dib would be lying if he said he didn’t find this persona at least a _little_ endearing. In all honesty, Dib had fallen way harder than he ever intended to, and he was fast acclimating to being called “Dibby”.  
The door clicked open and Zim slipped back in, a fistful of washcloths gripped in his hand. He knelt beside Dib and pulled the blankets back, then jumped right in to cleaning up a very shocked Dib.  
“Uh. You know I can do that, right?” Dib asked as Zim’s hand ended up right in his crotch.  
“Yeah, but I’m your mate and I’m taking care of you,” Zim said simply with a little shrug.  
Dib laid back, too exhausted to argue. “Somehow, _this_ is the most embarrassing thing we’ve done yet,” Dib mumbled.  
“Don’t think of it like that,” Zim chided him as he wiped down his thighs. “I’m doing this out of love. Think of it as the most _intimate_ thing we’ve done all night.”  
Dib allowed him to finish without another word of protest. Zim quickly cleaned himself up as well, then reached down to take Dib’s hand.  
“You’re sleeping on the bed with me,” he said, helping Dib to his feet. “It’s comfier, plus it’s not damp.”  
“Always a plus,” Dib said, stifling a yawn.  
They crawled under the covers together and, before Dib could take Zim in his arms, Zim motioned for Dib to put his head on Zim’s chest.  
“You seem like you’re not used to being taken care of,” Zim said in response to Dib’s confused look.  
“Well, that’s not an _inaccurate_ assessment,” Dib admitted as he acquiesced and allowed Zim to hold him.  
It felt good to relax as Zim stroked his hair and snuggled him close. Zim was comfortably warm and his heart was right under Dib’s ear, beating at a different pace than his own, but in a way that put him strangely at ease. So this was what home sounded like.  
“Do you think everything happens for a reason?”  
Zim’s question was so quiet that Dib almost didn’t hear it. As it filtered through his sleepy brain, he chuckled nervously.  
“I think there’s an intrinsic order to the universe,” he said cautiously. “I don’t claim to know _what_ it is or _why_ , but I don’t think it’s pure chaotic randomness. Why?”  
“Because,” Zim said, resting his cheek against Dib’s forehead, “all the awful things in my life — being Defective, what I had to put up with to get into the Academy, apparently being exiled, losing years’ worth of memories — I can put all of that into perspective, if it means it led me here, where I’ve got you.”  
For a moment, guilt threatened to overwhelm Dib completely. Did their current situation justify the fact that Dib had killed him and wiped his memories? How long until Zim figured out that Dib just plain _wasn’t_ a good person?  
But he couldn’t live his life overwhelmed with guilt. There were really only two options. The first was that he could tell Zim the truth and deal with the fallout. The second was to just accept that events had led them to a point where they both got a fresh start, and go from there. Love was the highest good, after all, right?  
Zim took Dib’s hand and squeezed it. “I’d like to believe everything happened to me for a reason.”  
Dib squeezed back with a heart full of love and a mind that was, for once, mercifully silent. “And you’re my reason for everything,” he whispered back, content in the knowledge that that, at least, was the absolute honest truth.

  
𝒻𝒾𝓃

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles inspired by:  
> Chapter 1 — Everybody’s Gotta Die Sometime [[⚠️🔞A Little Piece of Heaven, Avenged Sevenfold]](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=onCZOgWlr1U) MAJOR content warning on this one. Like, I can’t even begin to tell you how NSFW this is. Possibly NSFL, depending on how resilient you are.  
> Chapter 2 — Like Puzzle Pieces [[Such Great Heights, The Postal Service]](https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=RDKHw7gdJ14uQ&v=0wrsZog8qXg)  
> Chapter 3 — Don’t Change on Me [[Feathers, Absofacto]](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aItxygY4iyk)

**Author's Note:**

> The second and final chapter will be posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2020.  
> 


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